


A Study in Skitty

by Bug_Catcher_In_Viridian_Forest



Series: Sherlock Holmes in the Pokémon World [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Basic Pokémon knowledge, Case Fic, More in the notes, Pokemon AU, Pokémon morals, Victorian morals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 10:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8485669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bug_Catcher_In_Viridian_Forest/pseuds/Bug_Catcher_In_Viridian_Forest
Summary: An adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet set in the Pokémon Universe.





	1. Dr. Watson Meets Sherlock Holmes

**Author's Note:**

>  
> 
>  
> 
>  Case-fic: The story has an arc dedicated to the solution of a case. As a result there is a degree of violence towards humans and Pokémon typical of detective stories, possibly accompanied by some action. The crimes investigated are usually of the same kind as that of the ACD canon's story that is being adapted. You can message me on my tumblr about specific triggers.
> 
>  Victorian Morals: The story is set in Victorian Era, in which there are a number of problematic morals. I have no interest in playing them up in a distressing way, but they might on occasion constitute a plot point or a background element.
> 
>  Pokémon Morals: They story is set in the Pokémon Universe, where morals slightly differ from our own. For example, Pokémon Battling, when willing, is depicted as an enjoyable activity for Pokémon, even if they get hurt.
> 
>  Basic Pokémon Knowledge: The basics of the Pokémon Universe are taken for granted, unless there is reason to believe the narrator or his fictional audience are unaware of them. Concepts like Evolution and Moves are mentioned without explanations. The physical appearance of a Pokémon is not described unless it varies from the standard of their species, just as you would not describe the general shape of a cat in a story written for our universe (it is, if necessary, easy to google). The plural of Pokémon and of all the species' names is unvaried from the singular form.
> 
>  T-rating: The rating is for case-related violence and sexual subtext.

_(Being a reprint from the unpublished drafts of John H. Watson’s chronicles concerning his life with Mr. Sherlock Holmes)_

In regards to non-fictional works, the art of story-telling calls for the appropriate balance of elaboration and suppression, with the aim of presenting to the reader a structured narrative pertaining to the facts, mindful of propriety, but never devoid of romance.

The constitutive elements of an adventure are the circumstances and their protagonists, both of which I endeavour to present in the correct order.

 

I am privileged enough to be one of the main characters of this story, in addition to being the vessel through which the events will be related.

I was born in the region of Albion during the reign of Her August Majesty Queen Victoria, from a family which was neither rich nor illustrious, and baptized under the name of John Watson.

In the wake of adulthood, I choose to pursue a career as a doctor of medicine and, in the year 1878, I completed my studies at the university of Fumelot City, from which I was released with an admirable final evaluation and the responsibility to care for a Happiny. This Happiny, who I had named Murray after an old crony of mine, had for some years been assigned to me during training in the capacity of a personal collaborator and was now, as I myself was, about to embark on the practical side of the profession.

The promise of an occupation wasn’t however included in the honours granted along with graduation. For a man whose situation in life was such as my own, the financial barrier was a distinctive difficulty in the establishment of a medical practice, especially in the town. I was so left with no other alternative than to join Her Majesty’s Army in the quality of field surgeon.

The second Pashan war broke out and my regiment was stationed deep into the enemy’s country, where, in spite of the dire conditions in which life was to be consumed, I refined my academic knowledge and developed the high-level practical skills crucial to the realization of any competent physician.

A distinguished career laid in front of me, had not an unfortunate injury brought the prospect to a sudden alt.

Attending my duties on the battlefield, I felt a sudden, excruciable pain running throughout my body and I lost consciousness.

I woke up in my corps’ camp, lying on a cot and suffering. A nurse informed me that I had been hit by a discharge of multiple Electro Balls and had been gravely wounded on my left side, shoulder and leg. Murray, who had enlisted as my Pokémon orderly and whom I had trained to evolve into a Chansey in preparation for our stay in the army, with courage and devotion had succeeded in removing me from the enemy lines, thus saving me from the ultimate fate that can befall upon a man.

The pains of my convalescence were prolonged by a cursed fever. When my health was deemed irretrievably ruined and my person not able to be of any utility to the regiment, I was put on a ship to Albion, with leave to attend at the improvement of my health and the permission to bring my trusted Chansey along with me, as a supervisor of my hopefully continued recovery.

Being without a relation in the world, I gravitated towards the chaos and confusion governing the metropolitan area of Fumelot City, the capital of our empire, with the expectation that movement and technological advancements would provide better opportunities in life than a seclusion in the country.

For a time, I lodged at a private hotel, leading a comfortless, meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had, considerably more freely than I ought. Loneliness and caprice led me to the purchase of a finely bred Snubbull pup and, with an additional mouth to feed, I could no longer avoid the pursuit of a less expensive accommodation.

The other protagonist of this story is a man whose character is much more extraordinary than my own and to whom I was introduced thanks to a combination of fortune and external aid in the from a common acquaintance.

It must be said that the custody’s of a Happiny doesn’t come free of charges for the medical student. The Pokémon belongs to a substantially rare species, whose members are decidedly useful in their curative abilities and who, when brought up within the confines of an universitary facility, receive all the advantages of being educated in a modern establishment, furnished with the most up to date technical knowledge.

Every Happiny so raised is expected to be of service to society. This is achieved by having the Pokémon employed by its trainer as an assistant for a minimum number of years or having it returned to the university, in order to be independently relocated in a clinical institution. Occasionally, special arrangements might be accorded, in which the trainer can retain the guardianship of the Pokémon, but its capabilities must be exercised for the benefit of the system who procured and formed it.

Determined not to lose the company of my friend, I found myself limping on the pavement of the street leading to PatholoMew’s Hospital. The intention was to conclude a deal which wold allow Murray to offer her services in the premises for no more than a few hours a day, until I could return to serve in the army or find the means to open my own practise.

There I had the chance to experience the joy of encountering a familiar face and the pleasure of unexpectedly getting acquainted a stranger one.

The air seemed that of a very busy day at the hospital. It became apparent to me that I would have to join a fairly long queue to have a word with the clerk in the lobby. Confident in my knowledge of the building that for a full semester had been home to my studies, I decided to avoid the crowd and go directly to the administration’s front office.

The desk was unattended, therefore I sat on minimal bench from which I could control the situation and waited for a secretary to return.

A couple of minutes had passed when a tall man with a swift attitude marched up behind the desk with a set of keys and some other item wrapped under his arm, unlocked a door and entered into a small room, leaving the shutter open. I raised myself in preparation for his return, but, after a minute, I grew impatient and followed him inside.

The space appeared to be a window-less storage of sorts, prevalently filled with papers. The man had lit a oil lamp hanging from a shelf and was bent over a small table, going through some documents, while the set of keys rested next to his elbow and a jug of dark liquid.

 “Good morning sir,” said I, “may I ask-“

“Please, do not mind me.” He spoke over me, without bothering to interrupt his activity.

“I would like an interview with recruitment manager regarding the placement of a Chansey in the hospital’s work force.” I continued. “I don’t have an appointment but I was hoping I could be received within the afternoon or get one scheduled before the end of the week. Can I refer to you?”

He seemed too preoccupied with his task to answer my query. As I would not leave, he must have perceived my confusion and turned towards me.

“You make yourself at home, but you don’t work here.” He stated. Although the room was dark, I could observe a twinkle in his expression, a curvature in the line of his lips. Then he selected one of the folders and replaced the others into a cabinet.

“I would just like to speak with someone in charge.” I said, with an ounce of self-defence.

Again, I waited for an answer, but the man’s attention had diverted to the jug upon the table; he examined it through the feeble light coming from the oil lamp and I realized that the content of the bottle was in fact blood. It seemed inappropriate to solicit a reply, so I prepared to leave, but, after some seconds, he lowered his eyes on me.

“The secretary is away for lunch, won’t be back for at least a full hour.” He said.

“Would you at least be able to tell me if this is the correct desk to relay my affair?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t work here either.” He smiled to me. After a moment, his eyes drifted from mines, he held the folder and the bottle of blood close to his chest and grabbed the keys with his right hand. “I have to return these before they are missed.” He said, shaking the key-chain. “And you’ll probably want to follow me out of this closet, as I’m about to lock it.”

I followed his instructions and hurried out, leaning on my cane. Once his business was concluded, he drifted off along the corridor, humming one the latest Psydovskij’s tunes. When he disappeared behind the corner, I tried to get one last peak of him through the windows and for some instants I could see that he had started waltzing his way through the hall, clasping the keys as the hand of a dancing partner.

I decided that my wait would be better spent in refilling my own stomach, so I headed towards the hospital’s canteen. Nor the place nor the food had changed much. As I was digging my spoon into a large bowl of puree, a shadow darkened my meal. Staring at me was the face of young Stamford, who had been a dresser under me during my internship.

“Is this not John Watson?” He greeted me.

He occupied the seat in front of mine with his own tray and we lunched together. In turn, we complained about our troubles, but, in the end, he was of much more use to me than I to him. He assured me he would personally seek the recruitment manager to see that I would be allowed to keep Murray under my roof.

“The hospital is severely understaffed. It cannot afford to hire any additional doctors, but the helping hand of a Chansey will sure be valued.” He said.

“Wouldn’t it be more convenient for the hospital if they were to remove Chansey from my custody altogether?” I asked.

“Surely, but we can stress out your prolonged need for a personal nurse for some other months at least. You require a companion.” He answered.

“Not only on behalf of my injuries. I’m running low on money and I am trying to solve the problem of finding comfortable rooms at a reasonable price.”

“What a fateful thing,” he cried, “you are the second man today that has used that expression to me.”

“And who was the first?”

“A strange fellow, working at the chemical laboratory.”

“I should like to get acquainted with him. But what do you mean by ‘strange’?”

“One might consider him queer in his ways.” Stamford said. ”He’s an enthusiast in some branches of science, but his ideas are pushed to excesses. A scientific mind that, in its intelligence, approaches cold-bloodedness.” He explained. “It was only last week that I walked on him to find a Zubat attached to his arm.”

“Draining the blood out of it?” Enquired I.

“That must have been the situation.”

“I suppose he is a student of medicine.”

“Not that I gather; that still doesn’t stop him from occupying a workbench for days on end when the fancy strikes him.”

Not intimidated by Stamford’s account, after finishing our meal, I let him lead me through the familiar corridors up to the laboratory. What a surprise was to discover that the person I had requested to meet was none other than the odd stranger I had stumbled upon not an hour before in that dark backroom.

Before we could announce our presence and state the reasons of our business, the man quickly interjected us.

“I would be ever so grateful to you both if you could refrain from creating any considerable distraction from my work.” He demanded, without raising his eyes from the microscope. “This is a turning moment in the history of toxicology, if you could please maintain absolute silence for about five minutes.” He then extended an arm and indicated some nearby stools for us to accommodate in. Stamford and I followed his instruction and patiently waited what was required from us.

This fellow, of whom I then knew so little and I was told so extravagantly, had not failed to make an impression on me during our first encounter and was certainly producing a fascinating one me now. He had quite an outstanding figure, rather over six feet, I reckoned, once standing, and excessively lean. His face sported some very prominent features. The polygonal frame hosted a pair of grey, determined eyes, a thin mouth and a markedly Talonflame-like nose, together in giving him an air of alertness and decision. I could see that his hands were tattered with stains and lesions, which I attributed to the bizarre experiments Stamford had related me about.

“Beyond expectations!” the curious man suddenly ejaculated. “Come! Come! You are both of the medical profession, you will be interested in knowing that you have just witnessed the invention of the ‘anti-venin’. It will soon be recognized as the most effective antidote against poison from the members of the Zubat family and the pioneering technique behind his creation will certainly open the doors for the development of other types of anti-venins. The existing antidotes are very unreliable, as I’m sure you will know.”

I was drawing near his space at the workbench, when he reached for me, put an arm around my shoulder and placed me before the microscope.

“Can you see how the blood has regained its viscosity? The quality of its coloration?” He asked of me expectantly, while his formidable countenance dissolved into a warm, almost joyful expression.

“Was it not so before?” I enquired.

“Not at all!” He cried. “Shall I repeat the test for your benefit? I assume you would know that the Zubat family is a species of hematophagous Pokémon, that is to say, they satisfy a good portion of their alimentary needs by the means of draining the blood out of other creatures’ systems. In order to do so, their fangs are equipped with ability to produce an anticoagulant substance, which permits the blood to become thinner and easier to extract. The quantity of poison exuded is normally minimal, but there are some factors which can contribute to make of it a lethal danger, such as the volume circulating in the organism, the strength of the Pokémon and the intent to hurt.”

He separated an inch of spare blood and released a number of drops into the sample, then placed it under the lens of the microscope.

“I have now contaminated this slide with Zubat poison.” He said. “You should see the ties in the blood getting looser.“

“And you found a way to reverse this process?” I interjected, while making use of my turn at the microscope.

“Precisely. The principle is akin to that of vaccines. If a creature is exposed long enough to minimal amounts of diluted poison, the body learns to develop what you might call an ‘immune response’. With an innovative reaction of my ideation, I was able to isolate the particles responsible for the restoration of the blood’s natural thickness and preserve them in a durable and portable solution.” His finger delicately lifted a small phial, containing a rather pinkish formula. “This is the anti-venin. I will drop a small quantity into the contaminated sample. Please observe.”

He had proceeded in liberating the hailed liquid into the slide, then placed my hand upon the eyepiece and remitted the full control of the instrument to me.

“The blood is condensing at a noticeable speed. A truly incredible phenomenon!” I cried, before relinquishing my position to Stamford.

“My congratulations! I told you, Watson, this was one clever fellow.” My companion commented.

“And now I shall have to test it on an actual person.” Holmes said.

“You should do that as soon as possible,” I complied, “such a remarkable discovery will substantially advance the science of medicine and society should be deprived of its applications for as short a time as feasibly possible.”

“I am not so fortunate in my ability to test my product with ease. You see, I do not aim to cure the common bites of a Zubat, there is no need for that. I created a powerful anti-venin to withstand the sharp deadly fangs of a Crobat, but the Pokémon is rare in the Albion region and it will be long before I have the opportunity to inject the antidote into an ill-fated victim. I would test it on myself if I could, but, alas, that is not possible. Well, I think my harvest at the moment can supply for no more than few doses.”

The phial containing the anti-venin was in fact not ample. He divided its content into in three small flasks and was for a moment lost in contemplation.

“We came here on business.” Interrupted Stamford.

“I thought as much.” said Holmes cordially. “May I be so bold as to suggest that the gentleman you brought along with you has an interest in going halves with me?”

“The shot is a successful one.” replied Stamford. ”Dr. Watson, may I introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Holmes.”

“You’ve been in Pashtan, I perceive.” Said Holmes, addressing me.

“How on earth did you know that?” I asked in astonishment.

“Never mind,” he said, dismissing me “I have my eye on a suite in Baker Street, but I hope you are not adverse to smoke?”

“I do not mind it in the least,” I reassured him, ”I’m very partial to the pipe myself.”

“Forgive me for the misunderstanding. While I do smoke with perhaps an alarming frequency, my concerns were mostly directed at the presence of a Koffing I have kept for many years, from which I cannot fathom to part myself.”

“It actually makes me all the more comfortable, as I keep a young Snubbull with a terrible temper, who I would otherwise have many scruples to impose on anyone.”

“The violin then? Do you approve of it?”

“If you are as proficient in music as you are in your waltzes.” said I, remembering the lightness of his moves as he proceeded along the white lanes, slightly aware of the impropriety of my teasing. I could see that I had embarrassed him.

“Then it is all settled, that is if you like the rooms.” Holmes said, short of a murmur, adverting the conversation in a different direction. Then, after a pause, he’s mood changed considerably.

“If I want my the effectiveness of my formula verified sooner rather than later,” he continued, “it is no use for me to keep all existing samples in my possession. I shall post one of the bottles to my correspondent Dr. Corneliu Acula in Transylvania, where several zones can be found in which Crobat is a common enough inhabitant. One I shall keep to myself and the other…” He looked right into my eyes with a friendly mien and extended to me the last of the flasks. “I was thinking of giving it to you, as a present to get to know each other.”

“Are you trying to make me do your work for you?” Said I with a laugh. “I’ll let you now that I am extremely lazy.”

“On the contrary, I’m trying to woo you. I can see that you are a medical doctor, which means any remedy against poison could be of immense use to your profession. Were you to chance upon a wounded citizen who claims to have been attacked and bitten by a Crobat, you could inject them with my anti-venin, save the poor devil and gain the notoriety necessary to set up your own practice after news of it comes out to the papers.”

“Why would a Crobat happen to attack anybody in the very middle of the city?” I asked, half-jokingly, but then I grew suspicious on another count. This Sherlock Holmes was quite charming, but a tad too over informed. “And how do you know about my plans to open up a practice, have you researched me beforehand?”

“I have very precise reasons to expect such an attack to might occur.” He answered gravely, then continued “I must leave you now. We will meet tomorrow at 221B, Baker Street. Is teatime convenient to you?” I nodded as he talked. “It is a truly nice set of rooms. I don’t think you could be inconvenienced by it, seen as you have been used to sleep in a tent during your days in the military.” On that note, he dashed through the door and out of my view.

I turned to Stamford and asked “How could he possibly know I was in the military?”

 

We did meet the following day at 221B, Baker Street, and the flat was indeed as decorous and delightful as the shared quarters of two refined gentlemen lodging in Fumelot City should be.

The living room was well illuminated by two large windows and a wooden reproduction of a Xerneas’ head, a foreign legendary Pokémon traditionally associated with life and nature, was hanging from the spot on the wall in between them. The ornament, Holmes told me, was given to him by his Kalosian grandmother. There were numerous mineral protrusions, covering each of its eight horns, which emitted a faint pleasant glow; they were cut from the colourful crystals formed on the rocks of Glittering Cave in the Kalos region and, when the light of the sun would withdraw in the evening, their intensity would grow brighter and fill the room with rays of seven different tonalities.

Two comfortable armchairs were situated near the lit fireplace, courtesy of Mrs. Hudson, the landlady. The sight of this picturesque reality laying in front of my eyes produced in my mind the prospect of a merry cohabitation; I could envision the delight of many a cosy night spent close to relaxing warmth emanating from the burning of logs, perhaps accompanied by one of my new comrade’s fine violin melodies.

Holmes showed me the adjoined bed-rooms in the back of the house and let me have the pick of the better, in lieu of my persistent frail health. He then came along with me as I returned to the hotel to communicate the end of my permanence and collect a few belongings of mine.

So dear were his manners towards me and so valued his assistance in my relocation, that, then and there, I could not doubt, if one were to look for me, I could be found right at the starts of a spectacular friendship.

 

As for the circumstances of our adventure, the first of many, I will soon lay them out for the reader to experience. I will attempt to put together all the good ingredients of an engaging story and one thing I can promise you – our events are romantic enough to call for suppression, rather than expansion.


	2. The Game of Deduction

“I dare say, Holmes, you take delight in being a mystery to me.” I said the following morning during breakfast. “You seem to be aware of quite a few facts regarding my life, none of which I have shared with you myself. I must attribute this apparently supernatural familiarity to a practical joke that you and Stamford have decided to play upon me, but what I really find most unfair about the whole matter is that you’ve told me nothing of yours in return. I really wish you would inform me, for example, of what is it that you do for a living.”

My companion’s eyes widened in surprise. He gently replaced the toast he had been munching down on the plate, extended his arm towards the centre of the table and rested his hand not too far from my own in order to communicate that I had a hold on his attention.    

 “I must ask your forgiveness,” Holmes said, as soon as he had consumed the bite in his mouth, “it was not my intention to be so private. I can get quite distracted when I am in good company and I had not realized that you had no understanding of my occupation.”

“What is it then?” I asked.

“You are a clever sort of man, Watson. If you set to look out for the correct signs, I have no doubt that you could determine it yourself.” He answered. “Why don’t you try to deduce it?”

“Deduce it?”

“Exactly. Observe me, collect data, infer from the available information, draw your conclusions.”

“If this is a game, I’m up for it.” I cried. “I would normally scold a young impertinent fellow as yourself, but I am starving for any form of entertainment. My health being what it is, I am not able to step outside unless the weather is genial.”

I rose from the table to retrieve my notebook from the pocket of my coat.

“Let’s see,” I started, “knowledge of chemistry? Profound. Knowledge of music? Even practical or so he claims. Knowledge of literature? Nil. Knowledge of-“

“What the deuce are you on about?” He exclaimed.

“I am merely making a list of your qualities, to form an opinion upon the subject of this game. Observe. Collect.” Continued I, in imitation of his pompous dictates.

He snatched the notebook out of my grasp and frowned. “I’ll have you know that I’m quite well-versed in literature when the genre is of interest to me.”

“I must have proposed to you half a dozen authors yesterday evening and you could not recognise one single name.”

“If I am not aware of an author’s name, that’s because it is of no relevance to my work.”

“So your work doesn’t involve philosophy.” I update my list.

“There you have a hint.”

“I will have a look at your books too, if you do not mind.”

“I’m only glad to provide an amusing distraction from your involuntary reclusion.” He said without emotion, while his hands went through his robe to find a cigarette.

 

Early in the afternoon, a visitor came to call upon my room-mate.

“There you are, Mr. Holmes! You have become increasingly difficult to locate these last days. I can see that you’ve found yourself a nice house to live in.” Said this little Rattata-faced chap, anxiously standing on the threshold of our living room’s door. “I have an urgent matter to discuss with you.”

“Come in, Lestrade.” Holmes replied. “I’m afraid, Watson, I must ask you for the use of the sitting-room.”

“It is of no consequence.” I reassured him and then retired to my own bed-room.

Half an hour later, I heard their footsteps descending on the stairs, followed by the sound of the front door being unlocked. When I poked my head out in the corridor, I could see that the floor was deserted, except for me and my Pokémon.

There was my opportunity to pry in Mr. Holmes’ belongings. He had come to the flat with a considerable amount of baggage, most of it still laying around inside some crates around the house. Several of them contained books, magazines, newspapers.

The man owned complete editions of both the Encyclopedia and the Poképedia, each revised the previous year, and a number of law and chemistry tomes befitting the library of a specialist, some of which written in a foreign language. Then I could count an index cataloguing a variety of figures, public or not, a significant assortment of sheet music and a collection of volumes and articles, which effectively compiled every detail of every horror that had been perpetrated during the last century.

A leather bound valise, abandoned on the floor, contained trophies for the singlestick, boxing and fencing; laying in the bottom, there was also a small medal attained for Pokémon battling. Piled up upon the writing desk, there laid framed drawings of the scientific kind. The subjects depicted spaced from magnified insects to nautical knots.

Having satisfied myself as to the content of his numerous boxes, I relied on my memory to recall some more useful information. After breakfast, Holmes had moved all of his clothing to his bed-room and I had asked what could possibly be wrong with his fine hair upon spotting a couple of wigs peeking out from an old bag.

What else did I know about the man? He sure knew a lot about canines, yet did not get along with my own, though, I have to clarify, this was entirely due to my Snubbull’s rather impish nature. Holmes had disclosed that he actually kept a Houndour himself at a Pokémon Shelter in the city. The Pokémon had rescued him from a gang of delinquents ten years prior, when he was but a young lad, and he had in turn rescued him from the streets. Unfortunately, his family refused to take Houndour as a permanent part of the household, but at least they accepted to pay for a spacious pen at a very respectable Pokémon Shelter, where the Pokémon had since made many friends among its the other residents. Holmes would often visit.

Still on the subject of his Pokémon, the Koffing had been caught in a dark luxurious pokéball, an advanced model, which you would have not found in circulation a decade earlier.

Lastly, he had personally confirmed that the medical profession was not his field.

I updated my list and sat near the fire to contemplate what sort of vocation a man like Sherlock Holmes would possibly go for.

 

Holmes returned late in the evening and dined alone. As he ate, I observed him from over the pages of my novel, trying to discern where he had spent the day and what could have been the object of his outing. He was in a cold, taciturn mood and Harriet, my Snubbull, was asleep in the armchair opposite of mine; the room was silent except for the clanking of the cutlery upon the plate.

When the maid came in to clear the table, Holmes stood up from his chair and started pacing up and down the carpet. After a minute, he stopped abruptly and ask me if I wouldn’t mind him playing something on the violin at such an irregular hour. I allowed him to pursue this whimsical impulse, provided that he would play some of Romendelssohn’s Lieder and other favourites of mines. His powers on the instrument, I could now corroborate, were indeed remarkable.

“I shall much enjoy to hear you playing again, Holmes.” I said, once the violin was returned to its case. “Your performance was quite marvellous. Will you sit with me before the fire?”

“I wouldn’t want to disturb this poor dog.” He replied, a feeble smile crossing his features. His nerves had noticeably relaxed since he had arrived at home, but he still didn’t seem too keen on companionship. “This has been a long day, I will retire now.”

I soon followed his example and prepared for the night.

In the darkness of my bed-room I could not help but to think of Holmes and of his business and I found that I’d rather solve the mystery of the man than succumb to sleep. Going through all the elements back and forth, I felt quite foolish, but after what I believed to be a formidable round of thinking, my persistence payed out. I would have shouted in exultation, lest I feared to rouse my fellow lodger, who was resting in the room next to mine.

Satisfied with the outcome I had conjured, I let myself be lulled into sleep by the sweet memories of Romendelssohn’s softly played Lieder.

I woke up, earlier than I would have wished, to the pestiferous barks of little Harriet fighting against Holmes high voice. I run into the sitting-room to recover my Snubbull.

“I’m awfully sorry, Holmes,” I started, “I was positive that, before I going under the covers, my door was properly closed and Harriet secured behind it.”

“You are not remotely at fault for this,” he said, “I caused my own vexation. The door was shut, I heard the Snubbul scratching on the parquet and decided to let it out. Come sit and have some of these crêpes.”

“I’m not presentable yet.”

“Never mind formalities. Put on a dressing own and a pair of slippers, it will be fine.”

It took some minutes before I was alert enough to remember that I possessed a solution to the little game proposed by my companion.

“Holmes!” I cried. “I will have you know that I formed a precise idea about what is it that you do for a living.”

“Tell me all about your suspicions.” He calmly replied.

“I will, but you must promise not to kill me afterward, as it isn’t I who insisted on knowing your business!” I stated fiercely.

“Dear god, Watson, what is it that you think that I do? You think I am a criminal?”

“Far above the station of a common criminal, I think you are an international spy!”

Holmes shot his fist close to his mouth and shut his eyes. When he recomposed himself, he signed me the leave to continue. I was a little taken aback by his reaction, but nevertheless confident.

“Well, I put together all the hints.” I explained. “The first clue have been your trophies, from which I deduced you must be a man trained for combat. The second clue was your outstanding familiarity with chemistry, poisons in particular. As you say that you are not a medical doctor, you must have another practical use for this knowledge than the benefit of common folks. Third, you are keeping an extensive index filled with information concerning the citizens of this country and their criminal acts, accompanied by a good number of volumes of jurisprudence , which indicates that you have been dabbling with intrigue and politics. There’s more, the wigs in that ragged bag you were moving around yesterday morning suggest that you are a master of disguise. Finally, it is unusual for Pokémon to be stored inside of pokéballs, unless his owner is either rich or the balls are furnished by a higher organization, and, since you aren’t the former, for you need someone to share your expenses with, you must be the latter. I could not think of anything else but spy. It all aligns with your tortured character and how convenient it would be not to reveal your occupation, a concealment that you are easily achieving with the excuse of this silly game.”

“But why international?”

“The Kalosian token hanging on the wall, it must be a souvenir from your travels. I bet you don’t even have a grandmother.”

“Based on what?”

“On instinct.”

“And did you search my index to see if I had written down all about yourself, so that I could impress you on our first meeting.”

“I did, but I wasn’t in there.”

“You still maintain that it was a practical joke then.”

“I do, but I cannot discount the fact that I am very ignorant in regards to the methods used by secret agents to gather information.”

“Watson, I’m quite speechless.” Holmes said in utter seriousness. “In pursue of a fancy explanation you have completely missed a far more obvious one. You have correctly interpreted many of my skills, but completely misconstructed their direction. As for the pokéball, it was a gift from a lad I was acquainted with at university, to whose family I was of great service, and I do have a grandmother in Kalos, we even posed together for a photograph when I went to visit her last year.” He went to his room to retrieve printed proof of his relation.

“You hardly gave me any conclusive evidence on my being wrong.” I protested.

“I couldn’t possibly do that without anticipating the truth that you shall have to discover for yourself. And I can assure you, I know next to nothing about politics.”

“I will nonetheless keep a close eye on you.”

We did not return on the matter for a full week.

With the aim of borrowing a bar of soap, I had entered Holmes’ chamber in his absence, I’m afraid to say, without his permission.

I hope my readers will understand how empty was my life at the time and, as a consequence, how I could not help a profound sense of curiosity towards everything concerning my enigmatic room-mate.

Once I realized I had his bed-room at my disposal, I felt compelled to take a peep at his other belongings. My interest piqued at his wardrobe, which was, for lack of a better word, eccentric. Gentleman suits were accosted to outfits not in the least appropriate for a person of Holmes’ station in life. Half-hidden in the far side of the closet, I even found an exquisitely adorned lady’s gown, which, no doubt, did belong to a lover of his. At this moment, I understood that my friend wasn’t as lonely and friendless as I was and, I must confess, I felt a certain pang of jealousy.

I returned in my own room and took particular care of my appearance during the toilette. On Holmes’ return, we were to visit a nearby bookshop together and I wouldn’t have wanted him to make all the good impression.

On this trip, I had occasion to learned that, as much as the man seemed thoroughly educated in some areas, he was completely ignorant in others. It all came to pass when Holmes made a jovial remark on my slight delay.

“Watson,” he said, “if you were the Pokémon who carries the sun, we would not see the light of day till at least half of it has gone by.”

“Then it is good,” I commented, “that the sun is a constant point within the universe and that its rising and setting don’t depend upon mine or anyone else’s whims.”

“Whatever do you mean by that?”

“By what?” I asked in a distracted fashion.

“I do not understand your citation.”

It was so that I accidentally discovered how Holmes had no notion of the composition of the Solar system and rather believed the celestial bodies to be some Pokémon of mythical origin. I couldn’t fathom this unexpected shortage of common knowledge. He proceeded to assure me that now that he did know it, he would do his best to forget it, for his brain was like a little attic and he could not afford to crowd it with information deemed unuseful for the purposes of his work.

The exchange gave me another fanciful idea.

“Are you an actor, Holmes?” I tried.

My companion raised his eyebrows to display the briefest look of honest surprise. The effect transferred to his feet, for he halted our walk and turned towards me, with an expression of half-concealed hilarity, his lower lip restrained under his teeth.

“The disguises put me on this track, mainly. Those wigs.” I explained, taking care of not mentioning how my unauthorized visit to his bed-room had given me a far wider understanding of his collection. “You might need to have plenty of brain-space available to memorize hundreds lines and your comprehension of the Solar system is stuck at archaic concepts that have been considered preposterous for the last three centuries, they belong to the age of William Chespqueer’s celebrated writings.”

“I was more prepared for a ridiculous suggestion this time around.” He said. “So you think I’m an actor because an illustrious one didn’t bother to know something of no consequence as well.”

“So you know Chespqueer.”

“I know his sonnets rather well.

_‘Even so my sun one early morn did shine_

_To ride the skies on Solgaleo’s spine.’_ ”

“Do you mean that I’m right?”

“Not in the least. It seems that the more you think about it, the more you slide far away from the actual solution!”

 

For some time Holmes had been in a decidedly depressed mood; there were days in which he lied on the sofa from morning to night without uttering a word. The transformation came quite as a surprise to me, as for the entirety of our, albeit short, acquaintance I had known him to be an active and energetic man.

His eyes often displayed a dreamy, vacant expression. I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some hypnotic substance, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion.

“You must not think that I do not enjoy your company, Watson,” he explained, after I enquired about his health, “but I am naturally inclined to these episodes of lethargy. Just leave me alone and I’ll soon be right”.

I tried to raise his spirits with some light banter.

“You know, Holmes,” I said, “I am starting to think that you do not have a job at all. No employer would have allowed you to waste so many hours in idleness.”

“You see, but do not observe.” Holmes lamented. “You cannot deduce my occupation, because you insist on dismissing the facts on the basis that their interpretation is improbable, but, once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. When we first met, I knew your own occupation, your impression that it has been a practical joke couldn’t be more wrong. There is no possible way that Stamford and I could have communicated the details in such a short amount of time and in front of your own eyes, especially when I evidently took very little notice of his presence. All those things about you, I had to deduce them.”

“I think you are quite on the verge of mania.” I said. The man, with his arrogance and inflated sense of superiority, was starting to grate on my nerves.

 “You were clearly a gentleman of the medical type.” He continued, uncaring of my annoyance. “Knowing the building, owning a Chansey. What else? Ah! How did I know about your desire to set up a practice? If you must employ your Chansey independently, it means that you are out of work, but if you intended to return to the military, you would approach the Army to strike a deal for your Pokémon. PatholoMew’s Hospital is not hiring for lack of resources and it’s mainly sustained by the employment of students, so you must have a mind to open your own practice, which also means that you expect to come by some money before long.”

“Stuck on the inside for months, I have written a whole novel and The Strand magazine accepted to publish it. They might even accept new ones.” I interjected. “What about the Army? What about Pashan?”

“You have the demeanour of a military man, a career further suggested by your observable injury. Your skin has been darkened by a powerful sun; that cannot be its natural tint, for your wrists are fair. Where does a doctor serve in the Army around the tropics? The only ongoing conflict in which Albion is involved is the second Pashan war, that’s how I knew you must have recently returned from the region.”

“That is quite enough.” I shouted. “I do not want to hear another word about this nonsense.”

My protests were in vain, for they were suppressed by Holmes’ own complaints about dear Harriet’s wild-mannered behaviour.

“What is the beast up to now, barking like the world was about to come to an end?” He cried in frustration. As her growls grew louder, impatience transformed into curiosity and finally Holmes sprung out of the sofa to uncover the source of my Snubbull’s irritation.

Harriet was looking through the window, her snout tightly pressed on the pane. Holmes straightened a finger and let it fall perpendicularly upon her head. Thanks to the gesture, the Snubbull calmed a little.

“She is clearly bothered by the retired Marine officer’s fish companion.” He said. “She wants to pick a fight with the Pokémon on the pavement, but I am afraid she has only succeeded in irking me.”

“An acquaintance of yours then?” I enquired. “It’s too bad that my frail health has prevented my Pokémon from battling. I brought her to the Pokémon Fight Club a couple of times, you know though how I can’t stand the noise of a crowded environment in my condition; she has trained hard, but she has only had the opportunity to train with my Chansey. You might introduce me to your friend and we could have a little battle. Harriet and I long for some form of entertainment and this would be so conveniently close to home.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never seen the man in my life. If you want to have a go at it, you will have to go down on the street and introduce yourself.”

“Oh, I see. You want me to believe that you deduced the man’s occupation.” I sighted and moved to Holmes’ side in order to take a look outside. “So, what have we got there? The man is smoking a pipe, there’s very little there. One of his hands is tattooed with an anchor and a Carvanah resting on his leg. These details are only meaningful of an association with the sea, you cannot extrapolate a career in the Marine and a rank.”

“I have no time for such trifles, believe what you will.” He replied, returning on the sofa to sulk.

“Still, it doesn’t change the fact that Harriet is indeed in awful need of some distraction. I might even consider following your advice and go the fellow.”

“It might quiet her after all, to lose a battle.”

“Lose!” I cried indignantly. “Listen Holmes, I have good reason to imagine that I would win the match! Quite a few shillings were paid for this bred Snubbull and, as part of the deal, all specimens at the shop had been taught how to inflict additional effects with their bite. I, following the current fashion, choose to adopt a pup whose teeth were capable of producing a discrete amount of electricity. You must see that this is a considerable advantage over a water-type Pokémon. In addition to this, Harriet is a fairy type and this will protect her from any dark-type moves the Carvanah might use against her.”

“Your reasons are founded on a rational ground, except that you don’t take into consideration how the level of that Pokémon is far higher than your Snubbull’s. Do not be fooled by the unevolved stage and its flopping on the pavement. That Pokémon is trained for military combat and it’s much stronger than it looks. I dare say that it has also been stolen from the Marine when the trainer retired.”

“No stronger than any other common fish surely. You have been dropping deduction after deduction because you think I don’t have it in me to approach a stranger and expose your fabrications.”

 I went quiet as the man we were discussing returned his pipe inside a pocket, secured the Carvanah with a leash to a post at the border of street and came towards our door. There was a vigorous knock.

The visitor’s duty was to deliver a letter for Holmes. I decided to take advantage of the occasion to ask for a battle and get some information straight from the Ponyta’s mouth.

“Sir,” I stopped him, as he prepared to leave, “I’ve seen you tie a Pokémon down on the street. My Snubbull had been staring at it for a while and is quite restless about its presence. Do you not suppose we might engage in a Pokémon battle?”

“Your Snubbull should not want to cross moves with my Carvanah.” He returned. “Young as it is, it would be easily beaten.”

“Young, but well bred and trained!” I objected.

“My apologies sir, but I don’t have the kind of money you might find appropriate to bet.”

“Let’s just have a friendly match then, to prove a point. You won’t even have to worry about visiting a Pokémon Center to restore your Pokémon’s energy; I keep a Chansey that is a skilled nurse, she will be able to undo any damage taken.”

“Well, I am in service and I really shouldn’t battle, but I will accept your challenge,” the stranger conceded, “since I’m confident that I can defeat you in an instant”.

Our eyes made contact and we were ready to battle.

“Move the racket on the street, will you?” Said Holmes, pressing a palm over his forehead. “Mrs. Hudson’s won’t appreciate a wet scratched carpet and I’d be grateful to spend a couple of minutes in the calm.”

Mrs. Hudson, our landlady would undeniably have forbidden a match inside of 221B, so we descended down the stairs in order to reach our destination, Harriet forgoing a direct line in favour of running up and down her own path.

The Carvanah was unleashed and the battle begun, although, I’m afraid to say, it came to an end as soon as it commenced, when all of Holmes’ prophecies started to become truth. My Harriet didn’t get the chance to make a single attack before she was bitten by the Carvanah and collapsed on the ground.

I kneeled at her side and examined her condition, only to discover that I was tricked with the same surprise I had planned to use against my opponent. While I counted on my Snubbull’s specially acquired electrical fangs to defeat a water-type, it turned out that my adversary’s Carvanah was able to produce poison with its own, a super effective strategy against a Snubbull’s fairy typing.

“I told you your Pokémon shouldn’t have wanted to cross my Carvanah’s moves.” The stranger gloated, as I took my Chansey out of her ball to revive the poor creature.

“I undervalued the level of your expertise.” I admitted. Then I remembered the other object of my undertaking; if I was to be defeated by this fellow, I was determined to at least prove the one lying in the sitting-room wrong. “May I ask if you are a professional trainer or what other trade made you acquire such competitive skills? It is a great feat as to overcome another Pokémon with a singular blow.”

“Currently a commissionaire,” he answered, “but I am a former Marine sergeant. This Carvanah has been thoroughly trained to serve as my partner.”

“I see.” You will imagine how astonished I was to realize that Holmes had been right on that account. Could this be another pre-arranged episode intended to dazzle me? I could not comprehend the earthly object of taking me in. My resolve in believing Holmes a charlatan was beginning to wane.

The stranger was again about to leave and I hurried to make a last question. “Have you ever considered registering to a Pokémon Fight Club and make some money out of it? Such a strong Pokémon could easily find its way to victory among the many casual contestants of Fumelot City.”

“I’m not interested in frequenting such an establishment.” He said without any appearance of cordiality. “And now let me bid you a good day, sir, for I am much busy.”

I returned to the house, holding dear Harriet in my arms, in no mood to confront Holmes on my defeat and dissolving certainties. If there was any truth in his powers of deduction, they were certainly something to be much impressed about.

“Do not be beaten by your loss.” He said from the sofa, not bothering to open his eyes. “I’m sure after four or five years of training, your Pokémon will be able to withstand the first blow.”

“I gather you watched the battle from the window.” I muttered.

“I did no such thing. You immediate defeat was the only possibly outcome of the match.”

“Well, are you going to elaborate on that? Because I cannot quite grasp how could you anticipate my misery and also be aware of the man’s former profession.”

“Ah, you’ve asked him, so you know that I was in the right.” He smiled. “Watson, could you really not read his profession in his military carriage, a trait which you share, and the regulation side whiskers?”

“What about my inevitable defeat?”

“You have noticed the tattoo on the back of his hand, but you completely missed the small, yet obvious, marks of poison present all over it.”

“They could have been anything from that distance!” I exclaimed.

“No, Carvanah’s venomous bites leave a very peculiar shade of cerulean circling around a sallow inflammation.”

“Why would the Pokémon harm his trainer?”

“Accidentally in all likeliness, they were nothing more than grazes, but still proof that the Pokémon knew how to produce poison with its fangs, which, albeit an unusual combination in these parts, is a probable one when the Pokémon is caught or bred in foreign lands. Just for this reason, you should have been extremely wary, for Snubbull are fairy types and are especially susceptible to any kind of toxin. Had you been more informed, you could have further deduced, as Poison Fang can only be learned at a relatively high level, that the Carvanah had undergone a severe training, most probably to serve with its owner in the Marine, who, given the strength of his companion, must have been an officer at the very least. It should have been perfectly clear to you that your Snubbull couldn’t stand a chance against it.”

“You also said that the Pokémon was stolen.” I pointed out. “As he initially refused to battle me on the account of money, I asked the man if he had thought of gaining some in competitive battling. He replied that he wasn’t interested. I thought it rather unusual and that perhaps he has reasons not to put the Pokémon on record, which would align with your hypothesis that the Carvanah is a stolen one.”

“Some brainwork, isn’t it? I knew the Pokémon was stolen, because it didn’t come in a pokéball, as service Pokémon usually do. The ball must have been reclaimed by the Marine upon the officer’s retirement.”

“But how does one go on about stealing a Pokémon approximately large as half a human body?”

“Providing the Pokémon is faithful to its trainer, you instruct it to jump off the ship into the sea, swim away as fast as it can and meet with you at a previously selected location. Now you see that I was right about everything. Will you let me rest?” He dramatically threw an arm over his already closed eyes and puffed.

I was seriously revaluating my stance on the validity of Holmes’ deductions, just as little Harriet was revaluating her ability to discern how to pick a fight in which she could be able to win.

It appeared to me that I was required not to contribute to any futher disruption of silence, so I took the newspaper to engage my attention with a taciturn distraction. One of the articles was marked in pencil. The title went “A Rise in Crobat Sightings around the City” and the text proceeded to list half a dozen descriptions of the occurrence. It ended with a disclosure from Detective Inspector Lestrade, who declared that, at the present time, it could not be determined whether the risk of another attack persisted and discouraged all the citizens from leaving the house after dark.”

Had Holmes not suspected that a Crobat might appear in Fumelot City? Had he not received a certain Mr. Lestrade the day after I moved in 221B?

Suddenly, I felt that I knew with complete confidence what Holmes’ occupation must have been and why he was temporarily out of it. The volumes of law, the combat skills, the criminal indexes, the familiarity with dogs all pointed in one direction and now I also knew him to be acquainted with a Detective Inspector.

“Holmes!” I Exclaimed. “I have been a fool not to see what was before my eyes, but the time for you to hide is now over. You must be a policeman! Currently suspended, no doubt as a result of some atrocious misconduct.”

He started laughing heartily. “My dear Watson, of all the things I have been accused of in my life, certainly, being mistaken for a policeman is the most outrageous.”


	3. A Trip to Chiselled Hill Caves

Holmes produced in me a considerable array of contrasting sentiments. I cannot deny that his wit and cleverness were a great source of fascination, nor that there was an appreciated regard in his behaviour towards me, yet, at the same time, I could not help but feel the weight of an unnerving asymmetry in the foundation of our relationship. Some weeks had passed since we had first taken rooms together and, while he seemed to know a great deal about my own person, down to the least noteworthy minutiae, I still remained in the dark concerning all but the very general traits of my new companion’s existence.

My readers must not imagine that I passively waited for the man to come around and enlighten me as to his own affairs, for he seemed to take delight in witnessing my unsatisfied curiosity. I had instead formed a plan of my own and had been prepared to put it into action at the first favourable occasion.

Spring had arrived at last. To the average inhabitant of Fumelot City it meant nothing more than the return of green leaves and warm weather, but for a recuperating sick man, such as I was, the season brought, before all, the promise of once again being able to venture outdoors with a regularity of sorts.

The evening prior, I had overheard Holmes, while he arranged with the maid to have a picnic prepared for the following morning, from which I had inferred that on the morrow he would be vanishing on one of his secretive excursions. As much as he was unpredictable in his outings, Holmes was consistent in his habit of being an early riser and there would be nothing unusual to be found if, one time or another, he were to leave the house before I had left my own bed-room. On the very next day, using my tardiness as an excuse, I had purposefully slacked behind his schedule and, while he was sitting at the breakfast table, I remained confined in my room, quiet, but by no means inactive.

My scheme was plain: I intended to follow him undercover. With this aim, I had spent a good half-an-hour securing a piece on my head, fixing side whiskers on my cheeks and darkening my moustache; hair and powder all courtesy of Mr. Sherlock Holmes’ private stock.

The moment I heard the front door close behind his footsteps, I rushed into the sitting-room and silently lifted the window’s pane to hear the sounds upon the street.

Holmes hailed on the pavement for a full minute, waiting for a cab to halt. Fearing that he would perceive my eyes on him, I hid behind the curtain and held my breath.

When a hansom approached, Holmes climbed in and bellowed “To Kingler’s Cross railway station!” There I had his destination and my own.

My appearance still lacked some final touches. As quickly as I could, I covered my eyes with a pair of fake glasses, donned a lighter coat that my mate had yet to get a glimpse of and fit a matching hat over my wig. With my Chansey’s ball safe inside one of the outer pockets, I set off in pursuit of the object of my attentions.

On my arrival to the station, I spotted Sherlock Holmes on the departure platform, boarding the train with a satchel under his arm. To my surprise and relief, he entered a second-class compartment; I did not imagine his finances to be humble, but so were mine, and, being able to ride in the same carriage, significantly facilitated the chase. I reluctantly spent almost half of my daily income for a ticket valid through the whole line and stepped into the train, settling for a bench from which I could observe my man’s actions without being observed in turn.

The journey was a medium-length one. We had departed at 9:34 and, within three quarters of an hour, Mr. Holmes vacated his seat and aimed for the exit. I tailed him. As the train approached the following stop, the railway passed through a mountainous formation and for some seconds darkness descended upon the carriage.

The vehicle slowed down and the tunnel ended right in the internal area of a train station. According to the big sign on the wall, we were to get off at Chiselled Hill Town, which appeared to be a small unpretentious settlement of little traffic.

Once on the ground, I attempted to put some distance between Holmes and myself. There was a map at the entrance of the building; through that, I made an effort to anticipate the man’s movements. Despite its reduced proportions, an alternative feature contributed to give the town a distinctive character. The terrain was substantially raised westwards, in an extended prominence that was marked down as Chiselled Hill Caves, part of which was attached to the opposite side of the station. Holmes seemed to have advanced in that direction, taking a path removed from the populated area. As I let him stroll farther, I took the opportunity to engage a local vendor at the nearby store.

“Where would that route lead, young man?” I asked

“Straight to the Caves’ entrance!” He answered jovially. “Are you planning a trip there?”

“Can they be visited?” I enquired.

“Sure thing, if you have the means to protect yourself from wild Pokémon and can provide your own light. You’ll find torches at the entrance, but you’ll need to bring the oil if you want to set them up.”

“Do you sell any?”

“I can sell you some alcohol.”

“That will do, thanks” I responded. Done my purchase, I started off on Holmes’ trail.

The path leading to Chiselled Hill Caves presented a delightful scenery during the month of April. For two years I was bound to an arid foreign land, devastated by the fires of war, and, after my return to the dear Albion, I had still been confined to the sickbed. For the first time since my repatriation, I could finally appreciate the charm of my country’s fresh air and green-coated terrains. A prosperous woodland delimited both sides of the passage, allowing the highest trees to project a pleasant shadow upon the gravel. Among the dark branches, one could hear the spirited cries of the occupants of the forest.

I reached a small clearing, bordered by the mound on the opposite edge. The elevation was cut by a square opening at ground level; a signpost at the top of the entrance indicated that I had arrived at my destination.

Before venturing inside the caves, I called my Chansey out of her pokéball. Murray appeared confused by our surroundings; I had already explained her the scope of our journey the previous evening, but she could not have suspected we would end up exploring the murky hollow we were now facing. She vehemently protested about my insanity, but my mind was at the time so set on accomplishing my object, that I could only reassure her she would be there to protect me, were any evil to befall upon me.

Following the rest of the young vendor’s instructions, I took out a match to ignite one of the torches abandoned along the walls of the cavern and asked Murray to carry a couple of spare sticks, in case our main source of light would fail us.

To my dismay, the soil was made up of pure stone. I had hoped a muddy compound would preserve Mr. Holmes footprints and provide a trace that would allow me to track his whereabouts. I could now see that, contrary to my expectations, the caves had not been originated by natural phenomena and possessed a straightness in their surfaces typical of an environment excavated by mankind.

On a closer inspection of the location, I found that I was not to be as unfortunate as I first suspected. Holmes, in an effort not to get himself lost in the intricate network of tunnels that extended under the hills, had done me the good grace of marking his path by tying a piece of red cord to the empty torch holders connected to the wall at frequent intervals.

As I uncovered guide after guide, a number of Pokémon approached, but none came close enough to produce any significant disturbance, perhaps deterred by the fire and by a Chansey’s presence.

Once deep into the grotto, the temperature dropped considerably and a sensation of apprehension and uneasiness creeped upon me. I complained to Murray about the cold breeze, she in turn reserved for me a look of disapproval. When I began to thoroughly experience the discomfort of the unfriendly circumstances, I damned myself for my foolish proposition, for I could no longer see any rationality in engaging in this ridiculous game with a man that, for all I knew, could be a criminal or worse.

I was muttering profanities under my breath, when a stroke of icy wind blew throughout the tunnel and put my torch out. The current and the darkness had chilled me to my very bones. I reached for Murray and leaned against her figure, trying to regain some warmth. Prescient as ever, she had already got hold of the matter and created a new flame.

The next red knot was placed a mere dozen of feet ahead of us. I took a moment to decide whether to prolong or forsake my expedition, after all, there was very little in it for me in unravelling the secrets of an individual for which I had imprudently grown a misplaced unrequited interest. My legs were oscillating upon the pavement; I was about to take a step forward, but my advance was interrupted by an unexpected noise.

Coming from a cavity on the side of my proposed path, I could hear a delicate desperate weep. It was the cry of a small child. My heart filled with worry.

I searched for Murray’s eyes, she held my hand in response and we turned around to enter the secondary access. There stretched a flat narrow corridor, of which I could reach both edges without spreading my arms, had it been any more restricted, my plump Chansey would have had serious trouble passing through it. We proceeded silently, while the weeping grew louder and louder.

At last, we arrived at the end of the conduit and found ourselves at the perimeter of a large chamber. The lament resonated within the vault.

“Where are you, little one?” I asked with preoccupation. “Are you hurt?”

There was no reply.

“I am a doctor, I can help you.” I continued.

Before I could say anything else, another sudden current of cool air lashed inside the cavern. I was hurdled away from the rocks and I lost my footing. Expecting my fall to be met by hard rough ground, I was quite surprised when I sunk into the ice-cold water instead. My Chansey promptly came to my assistance, dragged my almost unconscious body away from the pool and tried to dissipate my state of freezing by conjuring a Heal Bell.

“What would I do without you, Murray.” I murmured. She let me rest in her arms and it took me some seconds to realize that there was something tremendously incorrect in my surroundings. I could see my bowler floating over the surface of the damn puddle, but how was it possible that I could see anything at all, when the torch that Murray had been carrying was floating in the water right beside it? To this question was to be added another element of interest: the cries had stopped.

“Where is the kid?” I demanded with increasing panic.

Murray responded with a confused look.

“Where is it?” I insisted, but she seemed unable not provide an answer.

From a hasty evaluation of the situation, I derived that the illumination was delivered by a circle of bluish-white flames, which appeared ethereal in nature, suspended near the roof of the chamber. If my readers were under the impression that this moment constituted the climax of my fright, they would be mistaken, for when I attempted to raise myself from the ground, I realized that I was standing on a trail of blood.

“Would you please lit another torch?” I asked of my Chansey in a trembling voice.

When she handed me the tool, I inspected the spots closely under the light of the warm red fire. They lead to the other side of the hollow, away from the pond. I followed them until I reached an elevation in the floor, on top of which a pile of planks laid covered by a crumpled net. The assembly seemed in my opinion to be the wreck of a used trap.

On that spot I sat for a minute, keeping on calling for the disappeared child, until the noises started again. They arose from a different opening than the one I had come from and felt far more distant.

“This is not a time to fear the unknown.” I told Murray. “There is a kid in need of our help. Come quickly! Bring the light over!”

Rushing over, as fast as I could, I made my way along the smooth tunnels, clumsily relying on the good leg only, for I had long lost my cane. As I drew nearer, the sound became more definite; moreover, it became evident that it was originated from a very different source and, what I had mistaken for the prolonged moaning of the small child, was in reality the growl of a rather angered Pokémon.

To this realization followed a flash of blinding light, coupled with the blast of a powerful explosion coming from my immediate proximity. The conduit filled with malodourous fumes and rock debris, making my breath uneasy and forcing my eyes shut. I crouched on the ground and pressed my scarf over the mouth to protect my lungs from the inhalation of toxic wastes.

Proceeding on all four, I advanced till my hand met the rim of a steep drop in the passageway, which caused me to stand back on my knees in alarm. The smoke was gradually dissipating and I slowly regained the faculty to appraise my situation. Behind me, there was Murray, holding my calves with motherly apprehension. On my left and right, the conduit had widened enough to form a tight terrace. Before me, a void without an end. 

My knowledge of whatever was going on in that black hall was limited to two distinct perceptions. Several feet below me and about a hundred away from my position, a feeble solitary light revealed the tumbled figure of a bemoaning man, trying to raise his weight upon his elbows. I recognised Holmes’ soft voice. Meanwhile the screeches of that furious creature echoed stronger than ever and yet with considerable variance, no doubt to be attributed to the incredible speed with which it was travelling around the dark hollow. When the air cut through my face like a sharp blade, I knew we were dealing with a flying beast.

Terror grew in my heart, as I feared for Holmes’ life. Without any care for my own person, I pushed my legs over the ledge of the precipice and plunged into the darkness. My body coarsely slid over a rough ramp until it reached the floor, then rolled at the bottom of the slope.

Surrounded by obscurity, my eyes instantly sought for Holmes’ luminous patch and remained fixed on his outline. If there were obstacles between us, I could not see them. I do not know where I found the courage and strength to cross the gap which separated us, I do not remember covering that distance, yet I know that I must have run towards him with all the speed that I could master, as, moments later, I was already leaning over his lying form.

“Holmes, are you hurt?” I murmured, holding his shoulders.

“What sort of reckless act was that, Watson?” He said, with lucid eyes and a trembling lip. “For god’s sake, remove yourself from this area! There is a Crobat hovering above our heads.”

“I won’t leave you alone here in this miserable state. If the Crobat wants to hurt you, it will have to battle against me. But how come are you defenceless, where is your Koffing?”

“Close, I hope.” He whispered, then added, motioning at the smoke-filled air “Injured. He exploded in an attempt to protect me.”

“We will find him, Holmes. I’ve got Murray with me and she’s a strong, capable Pokémon. Can you stand?”

“I think so.” He replied with a dry smile.

A mutual effort to raise the other from the ground was inconveniently hindered by our weakened physical condition and we both collapsed back onto the cold stone. In my fall, I hit Holmes’ portable lantern, which reeled along the even surface, producing a vibrant metallic clank that resonated throughout the whole cavern.

This was all it took to remind the soaring Pokémon of our presence. Its screeches halted at first, only to reprise with a formidable shriek a few moments later.

“It’s coming.” Cried Holmes. “Watson, save yourself!”

I let him talk no further. As the sound of death approached, I trust my body above his to shield him from harm. At my gesture, he responded by digging his hands inside my back. In these fatal instants, I felt closer to another human being than I had ever been. The loss of my life I had already faced in loneliness, now I would face it in companionship.

I exhaled a last breath with my face pressed on Holmes’ coat and my vision blacked out.

 

 

Despite the apparent hopelessness of our situation, the time came once again for the sun to shine upon our face.

I opened my eyes to the sight of the clear blue sky and for some seconds I sincerely believed that I had reached the afterlife. It was Holmes’ desperate voice who roused me from the desolate fate I had pictured.

“Brett! Brett! Be strong, my dear friend.” I could hear him saying. “All is going to be well.”

Worn and in pain, I still decided to sit up and take notice of my surroundings. Holmes was holding his injured Koffing in his arms, to which he was whispering reassuring words of encouragement. Opposite of him, Murray was working on providing some provisional mending for the poor creature. I stood up to join the group and examine the Pokémon myself.

“The skin is severely fractured.” I said. “A thorough treatment with paste along with appropriate bandaging will be able to repair the cracks, but we’ll have to take it to a Pokémon Center straightaway.”

“There is one Pokémon Center at the village.” Holmes supplied. “I’ll carry Brett there immediately.”

“It would be a far better idea to let Murray complete this task. Her pace is not fast, but at least she’s not hurt, which can hardly be said for you.” I said, noting his limping posture and the ripped trousers on his tight.

“Have you looked at the state of yourself? One would think you were a muddy Ducklett.”

Lowering my head, I studied the state of my apparel. My clothes were soaked, scratched, utterly ruined. Holmes circled a finger before his face and I touched mine in response. The cosmetic appliances, which in the passion of the events I had forgot I was wearing, had fallen off, leaving my cheeks ruddy and tacky. The fake glasses’ frame was discernibly crooked.

“Wait.” Said Holmes, brushing his thumb around the contours of my lips. “They’re all bordered with black powder. Here, take my coat, it’s dry; you are still recovering, you can’t afford to risk pneumonia.”

I thanked him for his thoughtfulness and complied with his request, in exchange for the promise that he would let me look at his wound.

From what I could gather, we were situated on one of the hills above the caves. I bid my Chansey godspeed wishes and let her march down the green descent with Holmes’ Koffing occupied pokéball in her lap.

“I didn’t know your Murray was capable of teleporting.” Holmes started. “That’s how we escaped the cavern, isn’t it?”

“Every nurse Pokémon is taught how to teleport a party during their training.” I answered, while widening the hole in his trousers. “Lives may depend on the prompt removal from a perilous position, Murray saved my own during the war in this fashion. Unluckily, she’s still young and her ability lacks range and precision. It makes for an unwise mean to travel unless absolutely necessary.”

“I see.” He said with a pained expression, as I evaluated the extent of his injury. The wound was protracted in length, but relatively superficial. It would have to be sutured with stitches as soon as I got hold of the required articles. After some seconds in silence, I remembered what I should never have forgotten, even in the midst of our misfortunate happenings.

“Holmes!” I exclaimed. ”There is a lost child inside the caves that needs our help! We have to go back immediately.”

“Do not worry yourself, Watson.” He replied. “There is no one in the caves that needs to be rescued.”

“I’m telling you Holmes, I know there is. I was following their cry when I got side-tracked by the Crobat.”

“No, no, no, what you heard, Watson, was but an induced product of the imagination. Fake the cry, fake the little blue lights, fake the little girl.”

“How do you know it was a girl?”

“Oh, I’ve seen her.” He said, raising his eyebrows knowledgably. “A dainty little girl with a pink frock. I was fooled by the trickery initially, but, after spotting several inconsistencies in the episode, I quite realized that I was dealing with some kind of supernatural activity.”

“You mean to tell me that I’ve just encountered a ghost?” I cried. “What a pity and what a disappointment then, that I haven’t even got to see it properly! But at least I’ve seen the illusory trail of blood the trap it led to.”

“I’m afraid, Watson, those were entirely true. I personally checked their substantiality on multiple occasions.”

“So, what were you up to in the caves anyway?” I asked, changing the subject. “Trying to get bitten by a Crobat to test your antidote?”

“Do not think I am so foolish. I was merely trying to capture a couple of high-levelled Zubat to use in the production of more and better anti-venin. I’m planning on setting up a dedicated laboratory and I’ve only got two specimen. It is not merely a question of fabricated quantity; although the composition of Zubat’s venom is almost identical in all the members of the family, no individual’s toxins are exactly the same. If the employed poison comes from a variety of sources, the antidote will cover a wider range of variations.”

“Holmes, if you set up the trap we were just discussing, I will have you know that I find the expedient outrageous!” I exclaimed in a bout of anger, for I have always been quite sensible regarding the good treatment of all creatures. “Pokémon should never be caught without their consent, especially if the mean is unsafe and liable to cause them harm.”

“I can assure you my method of capture is perfectly safe for the Pokémon.” Holmes tried to calm me.

“There was blood leading to the trap!” I fervently shouted right to his face, my fists clenched.

“That was not my trap, Watson, I swear!” He objected, opening his satchel in self-defence and showing me its contents. “I only planned to use some cheri berries as a bait and a harness to take them with me. I assure you they would have been perfectly looked after under my care.”

“And I suppose you are under the impression that the Zubats would have any idea they were assenting to be part of an experiment.” I retorted.

“I don’t see how they would object to a warm refuge and easy food in exchange for a minor daily dose of poison. And what were you doing in the caves?” Holmes said, trying to divert the course of the conversation.

Caught unprepared to answer such question, I turned away from Holmes to hide the blush forming upon my face.

“I was playing your ridiculous game.” I muttered, still avoiding his gaze. Then my outrage returned in full force. “‘Why don’t you try to deduce my business?’ You said. ‘Why don’t you try to observe me, collect data?’ Well here I am, wet like a Magikarp and severely battered, on a hill in the middle of nowhere, for no saner purpose than to discover whether my room-mate is a veritable genius or just as nut as myself!”

One would have thought that such a venting would bring some mortification out of Mr. Sherlock Holmes, yet, I couldn’t even arrive at the end of my incensed speech and the man was already holding his stomach in a fit of laughter.

“My dear, dear Watson,” He said, after his outburst had calmed, “you must forgive me for all the troubles I put you through this morning, the Crobat in particular was a most unexpected encounter, but it was an indispensable step to the test of your abilities.”

“The test? What test, may I ask?”

“You may have noticed how I wasn’t in the least surprised by your appearance”.

“I have to admit that the fact was rather peculiar.”

“I owe you an explanation for that.” Holmes paused for a moment to look at the horizon, then his eyes returned on mine. “When I was dressing myself a couple of days ago, I noticed that some resources had been stolen from my wardrobe.”

“About that…” I said, attempting to form an apology.

“As we live together and few other people have access to my room, I could not fail to deduce that you must have been responsible for taking them. It could be neither Martha nor Mrs. Hudson, since one of the missing items was black powder and they both have hair of a corvine shade. It could not be one of Martha’s pupils or one of the street urchins, for what would a kid do with a pair of cosmetic whiskers of that size, and why would anyone else take the trouble to sneak inside an occupied household, when the articles could far more easily be bought in a shop. I checked your drawer and there they were. That was all I needed to divine your plans.”

“I am not as naive as you think.” I interrupted him. “You cannot possibly be aware that I had the intention of following you.”

“Oh, I did and I did everything in my power to ease your enterprise. First, I made sure to raise my voice, so that you would hear me in the kitchen, asking the maid to prepare some food to take away with me the following day. This same device I used to inform you that my destination was Kingler’s Cross station. I even travelled on second class so that you wouldn’t lose sight of me. The caves’ floor was unfortunately deprived of dirt, so I had to leave all those little red ribbons hanging around, to make up for the unavailable footprints.”

“You left those ribbons not to get lost yourself!” I cried.

“Watson,” Holmes continued, “your technique is very much flawed, but you have the spirit for investigation and some of the suspicions you have advanced during this game of ours were not that far from the truth. I am positive that, with a little training, you could very well assist me in one or two of my cases.”

“Do you really expect me to believe this tale?”

 “I have proof for it.”

“You cannot possibly have.”

“I really do, right here.” He dived his hands inside the satchel, took out a rather large box made of cloth and opened it. “I asked Martha to prepare a picnic for two. Would you care to share it with me as we rest before starting for the village?”

I could not deny that those rations were evidently unproportioned to one person’s consummation, so I conceded the likelihood of his story and accepted his offer.

Our meal provided the perfect occasion for me to get at last truly acquainted with my mysterious companion.

“So, in what kind of cases would you require my assistance?” I asked.

“Do you fancy the field of criminology? I am a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is. Here in Fumelot City we have lots of Government detectives and lots of private ones. When these fellows are at fault they come to me, and I manage to put them on the right scent.”

The news captivated me. I suddenly understood how all of this man’s peculiarities were effectively tied to his very discipline. I wanted to know more.

“And are you investigating something in particular right now?” I enquired.

“Yes in fact, the Cherry Laurel Gardens' murder.” He declared.

“You mean the accident, I read about it on the papers.”

“No, Watson, the charge is none other than an intentional premeditated murder. I will tell you more about this case once we are back in the city.”

We finished our refreshments indulging in lighter topics and made our way to the village.

Holmes’ Koffing was to be kept under observation for a full week and it would be dispatched to our address in his pokéball at the end of his convalescence. My dear room-mate insisted on purchasing a replacement to my lost hat and cane, as an apology for the disgraceful turn of events and as a thank you for the timely rescue of him and his Pokémon. Once arrived at the train station, he kindly offered to pay for two first class return tickets.


	4. Murder Strikes at Midnight

Holmes and I took a couple of days to recover from the unfavourable outcome of our misadventure at the Chiselled Hill Caves. The folly on my part had resulted in a brief, yet not insignificant, relapse of my illness, which, according to my own medical advice, was to be treated with absolute and constant rest. Not pleased with the idea of being once again relegated to a bed, I followed Holmes suggestion to move all unemployed cushions to the sofa, so that I could lay in the sitting-room and recreate a semblance of normality. Meanwhile my companion was still afflicted by the soreness originating from his slashed thigh and preferred to pass the time settled in his chair before the fireplace. Though the consequence of our recklessness were detrimental to the health of both, none of us spent the aftermath in solitude.

By the following Sunday, it became apparent that our ailments were losing the battle against the active spirits that were reawakening in ourselves. As I impatiently skimmed through the pages of the newspaper, Holmes kneeled at the bottom of my padded cot.

“I have a proposal for you, Watson, if you feel strong enough for a walk within the green wards of our city?” he said, adopting the softest of tones, from which I devised that he must have been unsure of how well his design would be received.

“I’m glad you asked, Holmes,” I hurried to inform him, with my legs already on the carpet, “for I long for some form of exercise. The scheme is indeed congenial to my very needs”.

“Then we are headed somewhere special!” He exclaimed. “Let me retrieve your coat. It returned early this morning, but I left it in my room with the rest of the send-out bundle.”

On the way to our destination, Holmes opened on a subject which had gone unmentioned since the matter was first brought up in conversation when we were lunching on the hills some noontime prior.

“You have neglected to enquire about the specifics of my case.” He said. “Did you already lose all your interest?”

“On the contrary, my dear Holmes, on the contrary.” I replied with excitement. “Yet one never knows with you and, as you never expanded on the affair of your initiative, I started to think that maybe you expected me to make sense of the events on my own!” Holmes appeared to be a secretive sort of man and I had become increasingly wary of not probing any further than he voluntarily offered.

“Watson, you are a wonder. And did you solve the murder?” He asked.

“From sensational newspaper articles alone? I don’t think so.”

“At least you have good judgement as far as the quality of those reports is concerned.”

Our hansom stopped at the entrance of a luxurious park and we carefully stepped onto the pavement. Before us stood a magnificently decorated copper-coloured gate, which broke the extended line of a brick wall. A plaque on the enclosure revealed the name of the site.

“Cherry Laurel Gardens.” I read. “The location of your murder. I suppose the aim of taking me to its very premises is to replace my journalistic knowledge with material one.”

“It is, but do not raise your hopes in anticipation of a solution, for, as the days go by, I grow afraid that my hand won’t lift the thick grey fog surrounding this mystery. Yet, what is more appropriate for two madmen like ourselves than a stroll amidst the blossoms, under the spring-time sun, with the added pleasure of a horrific tale?”

We set out on a gravelly cherry-laurel bounded lane, which crossed the gardens up to the end of their grounds on the opposite side. After a minute, Holmes pointed in another direction and we abandoned the straight path to work around the fence and set foot upon the soft grass.

“Tell me, Watson, what do you already know?” Holmes asked.

“Well, I had no copy of the article to refresh my memory, but, if I recall correctly, about four months ago an Unutan gentlemen and another unidentified party were attacked sometime during the night by a wild Crobat, an occurrence which I do not believe to be uncorrelated to our recent incident, given the rarity of the species. Crobat is the last known evolutionary stage of Zubat, an uncommon Pokémon itself to these parts, especially in Fumelot City. That its final and scarcest form should be producing so much trouble, concentrated in the span of a few weeks, seems highly unlikely.”

“Here, of course, you are not referring to our incident alone.”

“I am referring to the ever growing pool of sightings of the Pokémon. You have followed the rumours on the papers and marked them with pencil.”

“I have.” He confirmed. “So, I should tell you where exactly the bodies were found.”

“In this very area, I would guess.”

 “Watson,” He said, pointing at my feet, “on the very spot you’re occupying!”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” I cried, as I removed myself from the space, with an expression of mild alarm.”

“Do not be afraid to contaminate the scene.” Holmes reassured me. “The crime has long been committed and the soil, as you can see, is for the public consumption. Of course the ramblers could hardly cause any damage, after almost every trace it could possibly have furnished had already been ruined by the carelessness of a dozen policemen, trampling on the terrain like a herd of Bouffalant.”

“A bunch of incompetents compared to you.”

“You can say so, had I been consulted sooner, I would not have permitt- Watson! What on earth are you doing, lying down on the ground?” Holmes exclaimed, astonishment surfacing from his blank features.

“I’m acting out the bodies.” I replied humorously. My companion’s mien dissolved in sincere smile.

“As you wish, but I expect a faithful re-enactment!” He said, then donned a more serious countenance and continued the exposition of the facts. “The victim was a certain Enoch J. Drebber from Salt Lake City, as we could surmise from his card and the initials on the linen; the identity of the man was later confirmed by some of his relatives living in Unuta; he was forty-four years old. Among his possessions there were a gold watch, a gold ring, with masonic device, a gold pin with a Granbull’s head and rubies as eyes-

“That’s a lot of gold, it sounds like this bloke owned quite a fortune.” I broke in.

“No purse, but loose money to the extent of seven pounds thirteen.” Holmes went on, as he slowly paced at my side. “Yes, the family has been established as one of the most powerful and wealthy in the city. As far as other items of little value go, there was a pocket edition of ‘Ten Pokémon’ and a letter addressed to his name.”

“At what address?”

“United States Exchange, Strand, to be left till called for. The sender was a travelling steamship company; the man had plans to return in his continent and had bought a ticket to dock in Castelia City. Now, to the circumstances of the murder. The victim was found with his back on the ground in an unnatural position, a gigantic tooth stuck on the thorax and a conspicuous pool of blood surrounding the wound. There were no signs of a struggle, but the expression on his face was one of pure terror, up to the upright hair.” Holmes stopped and looked down at me with fondness. “That is a properly horrified look, Watson, but you will have to pierce your chest with something for a truly credible performance.”

“You won’t be so eager for it get physical once I’ll make you play the part of the second body.”

“I may surprise you, my whole profession revolves around gore. Yet, I’m afraid, there is no second body to play; the truth reached the news distorted.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you what I found.” He answered. “First of all, there were traces of blood going as far as five hundred feet away from the park. They started right here and reprised in the pavement beyond the wall. I could perceive that the track coincided with a trail of muddy footprints coming from the same direction. It appeared very much like the unknown participant had climbed over the boundary, where the terrain is rather murky on the inside. The gait was steady and belonged to a middle-sized person without debilitating injuries, complying with the victim’s absence of struggle. From this and the observation that a substantial exertion had just taken place in getting to the other side of the fence, I inferred that the blood must either be our dead man’s or, more likely, given that it was still dripping at some distance from the scene of the crime, burst from the second individual’s nose in their excitement.”

“There you have your murderer!” I cried.

“Possibly, but you have to hear all the facts first!” Holmes reprised me. “I still haven’t told you about the third party!”

“The third party!” I repeated. As we were talking, we had been naturally drawn to each other, so that we were now both sitting with our heads at the same level.

“About that. Footprints were lacking, but those poppies over there were severely damaged and, between the flowerbed and the gate, there was a spot in which the gravel had been significantly disturbed, as if someone had fallen and writhed on its surface. To note that there was no sign of blood in that direction, where it would have been pretty evident on the fair grains of the main path. What do you make of it, Watson?”

“Holmes, I am astonished, that is not quite the picture that the papers had presented! One or both of the other individuals must have been the culprit, but which one!”

“Do you want to think about it?”

“I’m not the detective you are.” I said. “Please enlighten me as to the rest of it.”

“Very well. The first question is how the tooth came to be stuck in the thorax. The police identified a Crobat as its owner, thanks to the samples preserved at the natural museum. I, myself, could already recognise on sight that the tooth belonged to that Pokémon and verified the conjecture by uncovering its poison in the victim’s blood. Now, my previous knowledge of the species also revealed to me an incongruence in the event which the official forces immediately registered as an accident. I had not been summoned to give my opinion, for I was merely accompanying Mr. Lestrade as we returned from the investigation of another case, yet I could not help to notice that the single stab on the chest was not compatible with a Crobat’s dental impression. It is a little known fact, but, unlike its previous evolutionary stages, Crobat’s teeth form an arc of uniform height rather than presenting two protruding canines. So, it is simply not possible that a single fang could penetrate the body without the bite producing additional wounds, which means that the tooth was detached from the Crobat beforehand. There is in fact no reason to believe that the Pokémon was even on the scene.”

“This is incredible!” I remarked. “But can it really be done, detaching fang while retaining its venom?”

“It is of course awfully tricky. The tooth would have to be refilled from the main gland before the operation and later handled with extreme care, lest its contents were to spill. Then again, the fang showed clear marks of this kind of tampering.”

“Wouldn’t a fang those that dimensions be able to kill regardless of whether it still contains poison?”

“Yes, but we know that this is not the case, for Mr. Drebber exhibited all the side-effects of Crobat poisoning; I’ll return on this peculiarity later. The second question is why an otherwise uninjured person would face their assailants, instead of trying to escape, and let themselves be killed without even providing a struggle?”

“He was unable to move.” I tried. “Paralyzed, maybe?”

“Bravo, Watson. But how can you tell?”

“The status can impede movements and straight hair occurs as a consequence of many paralytic moves.”

“Excellent, Doctor!” Holmes congratulated me. “So you can see that, as the second individual was easily climbing over the wall and the third had a hard time reaching one of the main gates, that the latter was probably inflicted by the same condition and that the former was probably interested in not being discovered.”

“The second person was the perpetrator then.”

“I think so, while the third an intended victim that managed to get away. It occurred to me, that such an escape might have been the result of a momentary weakness in the murderer, as supported by the speculated bleeding nose, and that, since the two departed in different directions, they might be unaware of each other’s fate. So, I illustrated to Lestrade the traces of an additional victim and he flew with the theory that they had been grabbed and dragged away by the Crobat to be eaten alive in its nest. I convinced him not to mention the last nightmare-inducing particular to the press and there you have the final reports.”

“An Unutan man and another unidentified party found dead.” I recalled. “What was the object of this ruse on your part Holmes?”

“To investigate while keeping the parties involved in a situation of stall for a day or so. If they believed each other to be the unidentified party, there was a higher chance that the murderer wouldn’t try to complete their job and that the target wouldn’t try to flee the city. I have good reason to believe that, in this atrocious business, neither the killer nor their marks possess a clean criminal record and my plan was to get my hands on both.”

“You didn’t though.” I commented.

“I didn’t.” He repeated.

“Any clues as to their identity?”

“A name is all I’ve got: Joseph Stantlerson.” Holmes said, with his keen eyes fixed on mine. “From what I could gather, following an internal schism in the masonic organizations of Salt Lake City and an overturn in their positions of command, Mr. Drebber converted a large part of his property into money and left for our continent. An old comrade of his, Stantlerson, accompanied him in his travels to function as his secretary. This second man had once belonged to an influential family, but during the tumultuous vicissitude he was forced out of his land. After his residence was racked and burned to the ground, not even a single photograph was left to document his appearance.”

“Could he not be traced thanks to a verbal description of his figure?”

“What is a tall, dark aired man among millions?” He responded. “There was a hat though, fallen near the Drebber’s body. Thanks to the maker’s information, I traced the shop from which it had been sold and the hotel to which it had been delivered. There I discovered that the rooms had indeed been occupied by two Unesian gentleman, corresponding to Drebber’s and Stantlerson’s profiles, yet both had been lodging under an alias and vacated their rooms some weeks prior.”

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“One of my leads was the poison-filled tooth. Where did it come from? There is only one place in the vicinity of Fumelot City where the Zubat family reproduces in such numbers as to make likely the presence of a Crobat.”

“Chiselled Hill Caves.”

“As we have ample proof of.” He gave me a smile, but it soon turned into grimace. “Watson, I owe you an apology-“

“You have already apologised at least a dozen times.” I stopped him, putting my hand against his mouth

“And yet I do not feel absolved.” He continued, taking my hand away from his lips to keep it in his. “My flawed deductions put us in mortal danger. You see, the Crobat that attacked us was the same from which the venomous fang was extracted. You would not have been able to observe it, as you had been facing my direction during the whole incident, but I have stared into those deathly features and, I can assure you, the oral cavity had been maimed. When I first visited the caves after the killing of Mr. Drebber, I discovered a trap, the one which you happened to come across yourself. A close examination supported my hypothesis that it had been constructed specifically to capture a Crobat. Due to the copious amount of blood and the unlikeliness that the individual who built such cruel a device would preserve a life, I determined that the trapped Pokémon was bound to be dead, most erroneously.”

“At least the beast had a perfectly good reason to be murderous.” I remarked with merriness. The joke was not one Holmes was keen to participate in, for he still took the matter very seriously. He stood, still holding my hand, and pulled me up from the ground.

“Unfortunately,” my companion concluded, “all that I could determine from the trap was a confirmation of my initial suppositions and that it had certainly been set up by a particularly skilled hunter. Now to our second lead, if you will follow me.”

We walked up to a nearby beech and Holmes pointed at some marks scratched on its bark.

“Rachel.” I read out loud. “It’s a name.”

“Does this writing give you any ideas, Watson?” He asked.

“A very beautiful name.” I answered. “Probably carved by the kid to which it belongs.”

“A child can’t reach this height.” My companion retorted.  

 “An ardent lover, then?” I said, leaning against the tree.

“And where’s the heart?” Holmes pointed out, drawing one side of the shape around the word with his index finger.

“Sometimes there is no heart.”

“But you must have noticed how there’s something quite wrong with these marks.”

“I really have not.”

“Are you a linguist, Watson?” He enquired.

“I am fluent in Kalosian and Alemanian. This past few weeks I learned some Beiramarian as well; Martha let me sit in the room during her private lessons.”

“Then you have the means to unravel the mystery behind these letters. I’ll let you ponder over it, let you play with this charming puzzle. What I anticipate you is that the clue I derived from the trunk of this tree has been surprisingly revealing, but to this day unfruitful.”

Holmes let himself slide down, resting his back on the hard wood. For a minute, I examined the writing intently to no avail. Once I had exhausted my train of thoughts, I settled next to him.

“When we arrived,” I remembered, “you told me that I should not anticipate a resolution.”

“I am at a loss.” Holmes said. “After all my leads had failed, to wait for another attempt was my only option. You see, who would take the trouble to hunt a ferocious Crobat, in order to extract some of its teeth, with the sole scope of using them as one could use a dagger? And who would have gone to the lengths of preserving the poison on their inside, when even an empty fang would have adequately stabbed the victim to death?  No, Watson, the queerness of the weapon suggests that the murder had a ritualistic nature. Hence I’ve been waiting for the last four months that a similar attack would repeat itself and yet nothing! I suppose, after all this time, that one of the parties might have otherwise perished or have been too ill to perpetrate another assault; a bleeding nose is not an indicator of very good health.”

“So you abandoned the case.”

“Not entirely so. I am keeping my eyes open and, if nothing else, this assassination has given a direction to a chemistry project that had been harbouring in my mind for quite some time.”

“The antidote.” I said.

“The general concept of the procedure was there, but I lacked the partiality to pursue the line of study any further.” He explained. “Yet, after visiting the Chiselled Hills Caves, the idea grew on me that I could apply my theory to the Zubat family and that, in the middle of the emerging panic, I would be easily granted the necessary founding.” After a brief pause, he suddenly changed the topic of discussion. “The story you are writing, what is it about?”

“Oh,” I exclaimed at the improbability of the new subject, “I didn’t think you would remember I was writing one, given you resolve to fill the finite capacity of your magnificent brain with useful information alone.”

“I might as well hear and then forget about it.”

“As you ask.” I consented. “There is a young couple, a woman and a man, recently married.”

“It sounds like a romance.” Holmes interrupted.

“Not really, there is a shadow in their apparently happy marriage.”

“Then it’s a mystery novel.”

“The shadow is another man.”

“We are back to the romance.”

“I’m not telling you anything else” I cut short, folding my arms as a protest against his interferences. “You shall have to buy my book.”

Yet, in the midst of such beauty and tranquillity, my tension easily succumbed again to relaxation.

“Don’t you wonder, Holmes,” I started, “at what other secrets these peaceful gardens might conceal? Or at what atrocious crimes are guarded behind the veils and parasols of the strolling Sunday folks?”

“No doubt the ghosts lurking over those sunny figures would be a great source of horror, were we ever privy to their matters.” Said Holmes, with an eye on the crowded main lane. “But we are safe in this park. There is a time for all families to close their eyes, abandon their worries and relish in the quiet afforded by the week’s end. Murder strikes at midnight, yet it is Love who strikes at midday.”

I looked at his angular profile and I could see that his eyes had closed. Then my attention shifted to the distant red patches of poppies near the lane and, as their vivid colour impressed upon my vision, I felt a benevolent sentiment flow within my body; all around the air was magical.

Torpor made its way into my still recovering bones and my skull fell back on the beech tree’s bark. When my eyelids came to be as sealed as those of my friend, my sight turned into a scarlet picture and I dreamed a never-ending field of those soporific flowers.

I woke up with a jerk to the feeling of being under observation and the weight of Holmes’ head sliding away from my shoulder. As soon as I regained focus, I could ascertain that a pair of little prying eyes was fixed upon me. A Skitty was crouched in a defensive position at the end of my feet, as if it had been unwillingly caught in the act of staring and didn’t dare to make its next move.

“We’ve got one curious creature over here.” Said Holmes, speaking to the Pokémon itself. “Have you lost your owner?”

“Do you think it belongs to someone?” I intervened.

“The red knitted mantle around its neck and the matching ribbon on her ear certainly seem to indicate this is or has been a domestic Pokémon.”

“Won’t you come here for a cuddle?” I said to the Skitty, extending my arm to pet it. The critter didn’t dodge my hand, but remained visibly tense. “It doesn’t appear to have a nametag or to fancy me all that much. Do you have any food on yourself, Holmes?”

“Only some cherry laurel’s berries that I grabbed for Brett as we entered the park, but, while perfectly safe to eat for a Koffing, I’m sure they would be harmful to our new normal-typed acquaintance. Never mind, I guess, it’s running away!”

The Skitty quickly vanished among the gowns and legs on the central path, leaving as suddenly as it had first surprised us. Still dazed by the abrupt awakening, we were not robust enough to follow through its adventures.

 

The event soon revealed a non-coincidental nature. The following day, I was returning from PatholoMew’s Hospital after overseeing my Chansey’s instalment as an employed nurse. Harriet, my pet Snubbull, was sagging in my lap, while at my side sauntered Holmes, who had offered to accompany me with the excuse of having some personal business to conduct at the premises and who was now loudly commenting the latest news on the morning paper.

“I hope, Watson,” he said, shaking the broadsheet, “that, since we are your sense of humour is not dissimilar from my own, you’ll find these fabrications as funny as I do.”

“Pray, Holmes, what article are you referring to?” I asked.

“This very one, listen. ‘The denizens of Fumelot City will be reminded of the great danger in venturing out during the hours of darkness, for the chance of encountering a wild Crobat is persistent. The sightings of the Pokémon have significantly increased during the last months, after an attack that resulted in the death of two night wanderers. Crobat belong to the last evolutionary stage of the Zubat family and, due to their gigantic frames, they are capable of killing a defenceless human being in the matter of seconds. As Mrs. Charpentier reported last night, after spotting a suspicious shadow from the window of her bedroom, she realized that a ten-foot tall monster was dangling from the corner of a roof in the opposite side of the courtyard. Her daughter, Ms. Alice Charpentier, confirmed the veracity of the episode…’ You see, my friend, it is beyond doubt that this alarming tale is either a deliberate invention or a fruit of the imagination. Week after week, reports of Crobat’s sightings keep coming through these ridiculously edited columns, all equally facetious. These simpletons have never actually seen a Crobat in their lives and all their descriptions are factually inaccurate on two fronts. The first, as I already explained you, is that, unlike its pre-evolution, Crobat doesn’t sport extended canines. The second is how everyone incorrectly assumes that, upon evolution, a Pokémon must have a substantial increase in size. This assumption simply does not apply to the Zubat family, for your average Crobat is barely eight inches larger than a Golbat, almost half the size reported in the papers.”

“Which perfectly corroborates your idea that there was never a Crobat dwelling in the city to begin with.”

“I’m glad we are of one mind, Watson.”

We were heading to the Crittermon Bar for breakfast, when my Snubbull entered a state of wild agitation.

“What is the matter, Harriet?” I asked. “Is there something wrong?”

“She got nervous because she has noticed what you have failed to notice yourself.” Holmes responded in her stead. “Which is that someone has been following us for quite a while.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t turn around, but look behind that lamppost through the reflection of that shop window.”

“Is that not a Skitty’s ear?” I whispered, then I noticed the hem of a red cloth protruding from the base of the pillar. “My god, that must be yesterday’s Skitty to be precise.”

“It is not a very good detective, is it?” Holmes commented. “Should we invite it to come out of his hiding place?”

“Wouldn’t it be inconsiderate to blow up its cover?” I returned.

That was not a point on which we were left to ponder for long, as, after my Snubbull growls in its direction grew stronger, the Skitty decided to emerge of its own volition, only to assume a casual attitude and to pass before the spot we were occupying.

Harriet nearly burst out of my hold in her anger, which cause the Skitty to face our direction with a frightened expression. The scared Pokémon climbed into a rack and for the second time disappeared from our sight.

“What do you suppose is the meaning of this all?” I asked Holmes, my voice almost lost under my Snubbull’s rumbles.

“Your guess is as good as mine.” He answered. “Shall we contemplate the event before a plateful of eggs?”

“I wholeheartedly agree.”

We stepped into the Crittermon Bar and bribed dear Harriet for her silence with poke puffs.


	5. A Fortunate Escape

Although my friend feared never to resume his work on the Cherry Laurel Gardens’ murder, it appeared that luck herself had taken an interest in the case. We found ourselves, some days later in the middle of the night, riding a police van headed to Holly’s Private Hotel, in the company of Detective Inspector Lestrade and his Sunflora-haired colleague, whom Holmes had introduced to me as Mr. Gregson.

Long after we had retired for the evening, the two policemen had summoned our presence with some urgency, due to a standing request from Holmes himself to be involved in any serious development concerning the business of the Crobat’s attacks.

While Holmes and I spent the journey in silence, the official detectives were congratulating themselves over the merit of the presenting the opportunity to my companion, even if neither of them had made the actual discovery and neither of them had actually visited the site of the incident, as we had been collected on their way there.

Our party had been joined by my Snubbull, who, once accidentally roused from her sleep, left us with the inevitable choice between having her brought along or having her wake the rest of the household.

When we arrived at the hotel, a two-storey building of respectable appearance located in Little George Street, we were met by a young officer in the foyer.

“If you will follow me, sirs,” he said to his superiors, “The victim is waiting in a room upstairs. His name is Mr. Deerling and I can confirm that he’s not in mortal danger.”

We climbed the stairs to the first floor and entered one of the several chambers opening in its corridor. A fine-looking middle-aged man was sitting on the bed, his legs hidden under tasteful, yet simple, red-tinted covers. The naked torso was instead underneath the care of a stern nurse, in the course of dressing a widespread wound near the left shoulder.

“My dear officers,” said the half-lying man as we crossed the threshold, “You need not have disturbed. As you can see, this is no more than a scratch and I am otherwise in perfectly good health, the police surely has more pressing matters to attend to.”

“I am surprised that the gravity of your lesion allows you to make light of your situation.” Intervened the medical professional. “My work here is done. I shall leave you now, but I must stress the importance of keeping to your bed and be as still as you can manage.”

After the nurse closed the door behind him, Lestrade and Gregson proceeded to the interrogation of Mr. Deerling, regarding the circumstances that lead to his injury.

“Here’s my story.” The wounded man started. “I woke up to an abrupt clamour at what must have been around midnight. Something had crashed through my window, something large and alive. I could feel it lingering in the darkness. I took the courage to light a candle and saw the terrifying frame of a massive Pokémon standing right at the foot of my bed. Now, I do read the papers and I found there could be no doubt that I was in the presence of the ferocious Crobat who had taken home in Fumelot city. Fearing for my dear life, I made an attempt to reach the door, but the beast interposed between me and my only chance to get away. My sudden course of action must have angered the creature, for, as you can see, it revolted against me and slashed my chest with its wing.”

“It is all very clear, Mr. Deerling.” Said Gregson, closing the notebook on which he had been making a record of the narration. “Your account of the event is most satisfactory and there is nothing more you can do to be of help to us. The matter will now all pass in the hands of the police. You are the third victim of this monster and measures must be taken so that the Pokémon will be found and shot down.”

“Shot down!” I cried, with sincere shock. “We must not presume the Crobat to be ill-intentioned and there is no need to terminate his life. Once it is caught, it can be escorted to its natural habitat.”

“You shall do your job, Mr?“ Retorted the policeman.

“Watson.” I supplied.

“Watson. And we shall do ours.” Gregson concluded.

“Nevertheless I must protest, a life is still a life and-” There I stopped has I felt Holmes get a firm hold of my sleeve.

“I think you should let the argument rest my dear fellow. You are a man of medicine and literature and this is no illness or fiction, is it?” He said with a concealed smile and a wink at the end of his request. I understood it as reminder that the whole argument was unnecessary, for, as Holmes had already explained to me, there was no Crobat living in Fumelot City and the assumed killer of Mr. Enoch J. Drebber had never left the Chiselled Hill Caves to begin with.

“I will follow your advice, Holmes.” I consented.

“If the detectives will not object,” Said Holmes, looking at Lestrade and Gregson, “I have a few questions of my own for Mr. Deerling.”

“We invited you for this very reason.” Returned Lestrade.

“Right, then.” Holmes went on. “Mr. Deerling, yours was a very fortunate escape. Not many are so lucky as to survive the opposition of a Crobat.”

“I like to believe that it was fortune who saved me, Mr. Holmes, but not luck.” The man replied. “The word fortune has an alternate meaning and that meaning is fate. I like to believe that I am destined to see and do much more with my time in this world than my death in this date would have permitted.”

“Quite so. Now, I cannot judge your height from your covered-up position, but would you describe yourself as a tall or a short man?”

“What an absurd question!” Deerling exclaimed. “If you really insist on knowing the answer, I will tell you that I am quite tall.”

“On second thought, I can hear from your accent that you are a foreigner, could you please point me to the whereabouts of your travel documents, so that I may check your exact height? It can be quite a relevant detail in my field of study.”

“I don’t have them with me.” Stammered Deerling, his eyes travelling from one person in the room to the other.

“Why ever not?” Homes enquired.

“I have lost them but some days ago in a mugging.”

“Have you reported the attack?”

“Not yet. Why am I being examined like if I was a criminal?” Deerling complained with some exasperation.

“Mr. Holmes, this is unacceptable.” said Lestrade. “This man here is an undeniable victim. Do not worry, Mr. Deerling, this interview is only a formality and Mr. Holmes will stop bothering you now.”

“One last question is all I ask” said Holmes.

“Fine,” Conceded Lestrade, “but make it count. Mr. Deerling’s patience has been stressed long enough.”

“Thank you, Lestrade. Well, the fact is that I can see no sign of a confrontation in this room. Though these are your current accommodations, here is not were the affair happened.”

“I was moved to a clean room to mend my wound.” Deerling replied.

At that moment, we were interrupted by a loud bellow coming from the floor upstairs, followed by a canine’s equally boisterous barking. That’s when I realized that my Snubbul was no longer by my side.

“Dear god, what is Harriet up to now?” I exclaimed, but my words were lost to Sherlock Holmes, who had already dashed in the direction of the commotion. I rushed after him, till he unexpectedly halted and I collided with his back.

The reason for our stop was that the source of the disturbance was moving past the point in which we were standing, over the steps from which we had just come from. We turned around and became the last wagon of a rather peculiar convoy. On the front, my Snubbull Harriet was leading the procession, running at a reasonable speed with a police helmet dangling from her mouth. Immediately after was the officer to whom the hat belonged, hobbling on one leg and averting to put weight on the other. Then came us, still moderately lame due to our previous injuries. Overall, a train made of cripples.

Harriet paused and dropped the helmet only after she had arrived to the street outside. The officer was furious and, with a yell, I begged of him not to harm my Snubbull.

“It is more of a courtesy than your Pokémon did to me.” He replied angrily. “Pressed its teeth right into my foot, it did.”

I apologised fervently, until Lestrade and Gregson reached our little group.

“What happened, Rancer?” asked Lestrade.

“This dog stole my hat and bit my boot.” The subordinate replied. “Shall I return to my post in Mr. Deerling’s bed-room?”

“You can stay here and keep an eye on the roofs, in case that Crobat returns. We were going to the bed-room anyway.”

We returned to the last floor of the hotel to visit Mr. Deerling’s original chamber, structurally much like the one we had just visited, but, where the other was neat and newly prepared, this one presented the evident traces of a disaster. The area was illuminated by an oil lamp alone, so Holmes brought others from unoccupied rooms.

“Wouldn’t you rather wait till morning and investigate in the daylight?” I asked.

“Nonsense.” Holmes replied. “Time might be of essence; we wouldn’t want to let some vital clues lay around till they are no longer of use.”

“As you wish.” I said and retreated in a corner, holding my Snubbul in my arms, as he proceeded with the examination of the disordered room, aided by a tape measure and a magnifying glass.

As I watched him I was irresistibly reminded of a pure-blooded well-trained Houndoom as it dashes backwards and forwards through the covert, whining in its eagerness, until it comes across the lost scent. When he came to inspect the spot where I was standing, I took the opportunity take a turn around the room myself. Lestrade and Gregson, on the other hand, preferred not to waste time on the task, as they were more than sure the events had taken place exactly as Mr. Deerling had narrated and, after a brief look, they decided that any energy would be more usefully employed in the search for the Crobat’s current hiding place.

After a quarter of an hour, Holmes appeared to be satisfied, for he replaced the tape and the glass in his pocket.

“Very well, Watson.” Holmes said. “Remember that little puzzle I gave you at the Cherry Laurel Gardens?”

“You mean the one concerning the writing on the tree?” I asked.

“Precisely. Here you have another occasion to solve it.” As he said so, he took one of the lamps in his hand and lead me to the portion of the wall right before the bed. His hand caressed the wallpaper right under the spot where the name ‘Rachel’ was scratched on it.

“Holmes, this is incredible!” I cried enthusiastically. “Not only the word is identical, but this writing bears the exact same style as the one in the park. They are undoubtedly connected.”

“It even contains a repetition of the same irregularity.”

“And yet I cannot fathom what this irregularity might be.” I exhaled, looking again at the scrapes on the wall. “I shall try to apply myself on this new piece of evidence, if the time allows it. What else have you got?”

“A ring.” Holmes whispered in my ear. “I found it among the fragments of glass under the broken window.”

“That is not a ring, Holmes.” I said, since he was holding in front of my eyes none other than an old piece of silken red string.

“It is if you take into account its function.” Said Holmes. “And its function is to be tied around a finger. There are visible signs that it is has long been used in this fashion. The thread is curved in a loop ending at each extremity with a prominent crease in the texture, which is indicative of a knot. The circumference of the encircled object must have been slightly more than two inches. Then there are two other less marked creases at a small distance from the first two; this means that the string was probably tied in a bow, hence an ornament. While the whole piece is decisively worn and dirty, the inner side of the loop is significantly darker than all other segments. If the string was attached to an object, this part would be cleaner; still the constant contact with the oils of the skin can adequately explain the brown coloration. Considering that many a poor couple will exchange vows over a piece of string if they cannot afford the metal, I think we can safely assume that this cord is actually ring.”

“Holmes, what an amazing deduction.” I exclaimed, astonished more and more by my friend’s faculties, as Holmes folded the string inside a piece of paper and placed it safe inside the pocket of his coat.

“I’ve seen you put some study in our next clue, while I was inspecting the room.” My companion said soon after.

“Oh, it is hardly a clue anybody could miss.”

“Yet it seems that the two detectives who accompanied us here paid no attention to it. I compliment you on been wiser than the official force. Let’s go and take a look at it together.”

We kneeled over the small pool of blood originated from Deerling’s wound. A five-digit footprint, large the size of hand, was impressed near its margin, except that the shape did not look human at all, for the three internal fingers were far smaller than those on the sides.

“Can you identify its source?” Holmes asked.

“I cannot say I recognise the outline. It could belong to a Pokémon or be some sort of physical deformity.” I replied.

“I cannot tell either, I’m afraid to say I’ve never met one of the kind.”

“I’ve made a little sketch of the footprint that we could use for future reference.”

“My dear boy,” said he in response, “this is our first case together and you are already proving of inestimable use.”

“Thank you, Holmes.”

“Ah, the true detectives are about to come in.” My companion muttered, as we heard footsteps approaching in the corridor. When they reached our door, Lestrade and Gregson entered the room.

“What are you both kneeling on the ground for?” Asked Gregson.

“There is an impression in this blood stain you might want to take a look at.” Holmes replied.

“Look at this, the Crobat left a footprint!” Lestrade cried. “But I’m not sure it could be of much use.”

“If you are positive that this mark belongs to a Crobat, then I don’t want to contradict you.” Holmes said, “But tell me, who heard Mr. Deerling’s alarm first?”

“His neighbour lodgers did, Mr. and Mrs. Sacker. The last I saw of them, they were recovering from the scare in the dining-room.”

So it was that Holmes and I left the room of the incident to interview the couple of witnesses.

“Why did you not tell me that was a Crobat’s footprint?” I asked while we were descending the staircase, a tad upset at my exclusion from the development.

“Because I know what a Crobat’s footprint looks like and that cannot be it.” Holmes reassured me. “Didn’t you also find unrealistic the absence of additional footmarks made by the bloodied paw?”

“Now that you mention it. You suppose the owner has deliberately avoided leaning on it?”

“I found a series of streaks of blood on the bedcover, as if the paw had been wiped on it. It certainly show a degree of intentionality that I wouldn’t attribute to an aimless attacker from the wild.”

“Fantastic. And what about the question of Mr. Deerling’s height? I presume you wanted to check if he was the middle-sized man who climbed the fence at Cherry Laurel Gardens.”

“No, my dear Watson, I wanted to establish if he could be Mr. Stantlerson. Deerling’s features correspond to the Stantlerson’s physical description as furnished by his old acquaintances in the Unuta region. The height was only part of the information I was seeking. The inability to show me his documents was way more telling, for it makes it likely that he has been lodging under an alias and that he’s none other than Mr. Drebber’s elusive secretary.”

We arrived in the dining-room, a cosy locale on the ground floor with two rows of tables, to find Mrs. Sacker shaking over a bowl of soup with her husband’s protective arm around her shoulders.

“May I introduce myself?” Said Holmes the to married couple.

“Who might you be?” Asked the woman with a trembling voice, looking up at my companion.

“My name is Sherlock Holmes and this is my friend and colleague, Doctor Watson. We would like to ask you some question about tonight’s unpleasant episode.”

“Are you a reporter?” Intervened Mr. Sacker, his demeanour the picture of outrage. “There is very little to tell and my wife is quite upset as it is, so, if you could please let us alone.”

“There is no need to be rude, my dear.” Broke in Mrs. Sacker, as the shine in her eyes traded its foundation from tears to excitement. “After all our modest contribute could be of assistance to the entire city. Is yours a big-name newspaper?”

“I hope not to disappoint you, but I am an expert associated with police.” My companion clarified.

“That explains it.” Said the husband. “I was a little surprised that none of the officers had taken our testimony yet. What do you need to know?”

“Just tell me all that occurred from your point of view.”

“As I have already told you, there is very little to tell and it all happened in the matter of a minute or so.” Began Mr. Sacker.

“We woke up to the sound of a window’s shattering glass,” continued his wife, “and being of a nervous disposition, I insisted with my spouse that he should go and ascertain immediately if there was any danger coming our way.”

“And so I did.” The husband went on. “I put a dressing gown on and started knocking at our fellow lodger’s door. It didn’t take long for him to open.”

“I think it should be noted that you have the great merit of scaring the Crobat away and saving Mr. Deerling’ life.” Added the wife. “It must have been your pounding who caused its departing.”

“No doubt, Mrs. Sacker,” said Holmes, “but you should rest now and I will not importune you further.”

Holmes asked for permission to light a candle from their table, then motioned me to follow him and we retired in the opposite corner of the otherwise empty dinner-room.

“Their account of the matter supports my hypothesis that who or whatever intruded in the room tonight did it with stealth. The sleeping couple was roused by the noise of a breaking window; according to them, when the incident was nearly over. I suppose that to be the only blow the window received or they would have woken up earlier. Since our culprit must have already been in the room for a while to produce that ‘Rachel’ inscription, they also must have entered silently. I already had a hint in that direction, for the fragments of the window were mostly fallen outside, suggesting that the hit was probably coming from the inside. What providential event might have awakened Mr. Deerling before his life was taken, we can only imagine.”

“Holmes,” I exclaimed astounded, “Please accept my apology if in the past I ever doubted your capabilities. Now that I have witnessed your powers on the field, I must admit that they are truly extraordinary.”

“I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a trained Delphox gets no credit once it has flaunted all the special moves behind its tricks, and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.”

“I shall never do that,” I answered, “you have brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world.”

My companion flushed up with pleasure at my words, and the earnest way in which I uttered them. I had already observed that he was as sensitive to flattery on the score of his art as any girl could be of her beauty.

We were suddenly startled by a deep voice coming through the front door; it belonged to Mr. Deerling.

“All right, all right, I’ll go back to my room.” He said, as the officer who had quarrelled with my Snubbul some time earlier escorted him inside the hotel and directed him towards the stairs.

“And you’d better stay there. Didn’t the physician tell you to rest in bed?” Persisted the officer. “Do you want me to fetch something from the kitchen? A glass of red wine perhaps?”

“No, thanks, I do not drink and I feel quite strong already.”

Yet the merriness of his countenance was contradicted by the paleness of his face and the tremors in his limbs. The man’s attire was equally questionable, for it appeared that he had just put a long coat over a robe. Holmes stood up and followed the pair until the bottom of the staircase. After a moment, I reached him to learn his intentions.

“We are waiting for the officer to come back, Watson.” He said. “I want to have a word with him and without Mr. Deerling’s presence. Ah, there he is. Rancer, isn’t that your name?”

“John Rancer is.” The officer replied unenthusiastically. “Anything I can do to help you?”

“Actually yes.” Said Holmes. “What was Mr. Deerling doing outside in the cold of the night with that wound of his?”

“I can tell you what he was doing, but sure as hell I can’t tell you why.” Rancer said. “Caught it in the act of giving some money to a beggar in the street. I think the man is delirious, he muttered something about having being blessed and giving back.”

“Where is this beggar?” Cried Holmes. “Lead me there. Now!”

The officer was alarmed, but still marched to the entrance of the hotel to do as ordered. He opened the front door and pointed at a particular spot in the pavement; unfortunately, the spot was empty, as was the rest of street. I could read the great disappointment on my companion’s lineaments.

“Return to you post, Rancer.” He said bitterly. “You held in your hands the answer to this mystery, but there is no use in arguing about it now.”

“Just a word, before you go, Rancer” I added. “Speaking as a doctor of medicine, wine can do some good to the organism, but it is not an appropriate beverage for someone with a fresh deep cut and you shouldn’t have suggested it as a drink to Mr. Deerling.”

“If you say so, Doctor Cannot-keep-my-dog-on-a-leash.“ He muttered as he departed.

“As for ourselves,” Said Holmes, “we might as well take a room in this place till Lestrade and Gregson give us a ride home or the cabmen get to work in the morning.”

“It’s after all the time to be asleep.” I said.

“For you at least, Watson. I have got a good deal of thinking to do.”

Once we were alone, I asked him why he supposed the beggar to be of any importance.

“Apart from obvious improbability of a severely wounded man going out of his way to meet a mendicant’s needs, when the latter cannot claim any special connection to him?” He said. “This Watson: what is a beggar doing in an empty street where there is no one else to beg from?”

“Indeed!” I uttered, keeping my voice low, not to disturb the other boarders. “This business becomes more mysterious every passing minute, my head is in a whirl. What is the object of these attacks? Why did the murder pretend to be a wild Crobat and why did Mr. Deerling or Stantlerson pretend to be assaulted by one? Who wrote ‘Rachel’ at both locations? How came that odd ring on the floor below the window? To whom or to what the footprint in the blood belongs? I confess I cannot see any possible way of reconciling all these facts.”

“Can you not? Since I was confronted with Enoch J. Drebber’s murder, I have been fumbling in a dark alleyway with a dead end on each side. A victim found lying in a park without any of those sensational accompaniments constitutes a most difficult mystery to unravel, for one has not data to work with. But now, every new or special feature is to me the equivalent of an additional lamppost being turned on in the black lanes of my mind and I hope that, very shortly, I will be able to locate the breach that will lead me to the solution of this case.”


	6. Follow the Red String

The hours of sleep I succeeded to secure that night did not come close to the generous amount my tired body was in dire need of. When I grew again aware of my surroundings, the light was freely flowing down my face through the open curtains; I reached for my watch to discover that it was but dawn.

Sherlock Holmes was sitting on a small wooden stool with his chest bent on the window sill, furiously agitating his right arm, as if he was in the act of writing something.

“Of all the spots you could have chosen to pen your unpostponable thoughts,” I grumbled, my voice coming out hoarse and slow, “you decided to pick the one that had the highest chance of waking me up.”

“I was not a coincidence, my dear Watson.” The man replied succinctly. “We are leaving in ten minutes, so stop complaining and get dressed. Take example from your Snubbull.”

I scanned the room to find Harriet, till I realized that she was standing right behind my head, with her eyes wide open and her stance alert, ready for the start of a new day. She barked me good morning.

Expired the time that Holmes had allowed me to make myself presentable, he veritably dragged me to the ground floor. There he instructed the young officer, who had welcomed us at our arrival, to stop on his way to the next assignment at the most relevant news outlets, to see that the advertisement Holmes had just handled him would make it there in time to be published in the evening papers at the very least.

My companion insisted on our timely return to 221B, on the account that in the flat was located an item for which he could not possibly find a substitute. A brief nap on our ride home is all I was permitted before Holmes set me to another, more productive task.

“Watson, you have a talent for drawing. Would you mind putting together an accurate depiction of that remarkable Skitty we met last week. In colour.”

“I would be delighted to be of help.” I said and went to my bed-room to retrieve my pastels. “But what is the reason behind this request? I hope you are not just using me to fill some blank space on your wall. I would be flattered if that were the case, but our rooms are already cluttered enough with all the unpacked frames you have yet to hang. Might it be that you think the red-mantled Skitty is involved in Drebber’s murder and tonight’s affair? Now that I think of it, the red thread that you declared to be a ring, seems like the kind of ornament that could belong to that Pokémon.”

“The thought has crossed my mind, but that particular pattern of dirt accompanied by the absence of any residual hair, make it pretty evident that the ring must have been worn by a human. Still, the connection has some merit and, as the material of the two items is the same, even if the ring doesn’t belong to the Skitty, it might belong to its trainer. And I think you’ll concur with me about the fact that a cat wouldn’t secretively stalk us for a day, after an insignificant interaction where it received nothing from us but a scare, without a definite purpose. No, there is something more to the matter of that Pokémon, for it happened to engage us right after we discussed Drebber’s murder in the park.”

I set to work on the required drawing. Harriet, who up until now had only seen me sketch my Chansey and herself, initially appeared a tad resentful of the shift in my subjects. After she snatched the pink pastel from my hand, I assumed that perhaps she might just be a little worried that my new illustration would exhaust the last of the colour on a Pokémon stranger to our family, for it had already been consumed to a speckle on her fur and on Murray’s skin. Only when I reassured her that we would soon replace it, Harriet let go of the pastel. She kept by my side, sitting above the desk, and watched my progresses with interest.

Meanwhile Holmes had been scavenging around our chaotic flat, signalling his continued failure with the resonation of his own mild curses.

“I cannot find it!” He said, exasperated. “I haven’t used the artefact since I’ve moved to live here, but I should have been prescient enough to separate it from all the rest of this useless rubbish, in case a situation of urgency precisely like this one were to arise and require its use.”

“What is it that you are looking for, Holmes? May I be of help?” I asked.

“Draw Watson, draw! For I will need that picture ready as soon as the item is in my possession.” He replied, impatience transpiring from his whole demeanour, as he gripped on the shelves with his fists. “I so wish I could remember where it was.”

“Trouble with your memory? Maybe your brain attic needs an expansion.” I joked distractedly, but I quickly realized that my friend did not appreciate the tone of the remark and took it quite the opposite of what I had anticipated.

“Maybe what I need is not to be distracted by your nonsensical chatter.” He turned around and snapped.

“Fine then!” I cried, offended, hitting my palm on the almost finished drawing. “If this is how I am to be treated, I’ll leave you to investigate the case on your own.”

“Do what you will!” He shouted louder. “I have survived without your assistance before and I will do so now.”

“And so I!” I retorted.

The escalating tension was suddenly disrupted by the shrieking sound of a whistle. We both turned in the direction of its source and saw that Holmes’ Koffing, who had been recently returned from his hospitalization at Chiselled Hills' Pokémon Center, was holding a shining instrument between his maws. Then I turned to face Holmes and I could see that his lineaments had softened to express a mixture of relief and regret.

I, still hurt and uninterested in continuing the conversation, decided to turn towards my bed-room and took a few steps. Immediately Holmes reached for my shoulders and halted me.

“I have behaved like a brute.” He murmured. “Forgive me.”

Impressed by the sincerity of his new conduct, I could not help but give in to his appeal.

“I do forgive you,” I said, “if only because I attribute your rudeness to your not having slept in more that twenty-four hours.”

“You are too kind in excusing my nerves with weariness, but I’m not sure that I deserve it. I am stressed, but at least now I have what I was looking for.”

“What is it then? When have you found it?”

“I didn’t actually find it, Brett did.” Said Holmes, opening an arm towards his Koffing. He then closed the distance between him and his Pokémon, tenderly patted a hand on the top of his round body and removed the object from his mouth. “Thank you Brett, you are, as always, indispensable. But you should rest now. Go in my room, where you will not be disturbed.”

The Koffing made a low pacified screech and disappeared beyond the door to Holmes’ chamber.

“Here, Watson.” My companion said, while firmly laying the instrument on the desk, in front of my drawing. It was an elegant whistle, made of silver, with a conical shape and engraved with Pokémon-like features. “This allows me to call the eyes and hears of Fumelot City at my service. I have not the time, the stealth and the ubiquity to infiltrate all the corners of this city. Yet, the friends this device connects me to are more than happy to provide me with this kind of aid in exchange for a proper reward. If you will let me use your drawing, I will make a demonstration.”

“Just let me add the last details and I will give it to you.” I told him and sat back on my chair.

That done, Holmes put the whistle between his lips and blew for a prolonged sound.

The seconds passed without the manifestation of any results consequential to my friend’s action.

“Are we waiting for something?” I asked.

“Yes, we are.” He answered and, a few moments later, gave me a little smile. “They are starting to arrive, can you hear?”

And yes, I could hear it. The sound of many little paws pounding on our front door and, after the door had been opened, running on the steps to the first floor. To my companion’s immense pleasure, there were now half a dozen of the dirtiest and most rough-looking Rattata that ever I clapped eyes on. They were followed by the entrance of Mrs. Hudson, our rather annoyed landlady.

“What is the meaning of this, Mr. Holmes?” She asked with determination.

“Nothing to worry about, my dear Mrs. Hudson. Just a few collaborators to help me in my detective work.” He tried soothingly, but our landlady did not appear to be pleased with the reply. She lifted her gown in her hands and made a quarter of a circle around the group of Rattata till she stood right next to Sherlock Holmes.

“Não tente me enganar, moço. I expect you to clean the mess these creatures have made on their way from foyer to your quarters.” She declared.

Holmes was unable to form a response. Mrs. Hudson was a formidable woman, eight years his senior and only a couple of inches shorter. The dignity of her bearing made it quite difficult for any man to contradict her.

 “The carpets had better be in pristine condition by the end of the week.” She added, as she strode out of the room, leaving my friend’s face signed with an expression of guilt.

When Holmes had recovered from the confrontation, he took my drawing and showed it to the Rattata.

“See this Skitty?” He told the Pokémon. “It lives in Fumelot City and I need to have it located as soon as it may be. We have already encountered it in Cherry Laurel Gardens and outside the Crittermon bar. It could possibly show up at Holly’s Hotel in Little George Street. If you succeed in this assignment, I will reward you with a bag full of Pokéblocks, in addition to one daily block for each one of you, regardless of the outcome. Will you do this for me?”

The Rattata squealed and nodded with their heads.

“Here’s today’s pay.” He said as he handled them their Pokéblocks. “In future you shall send up Wiggins alone to report, and the rest of you must wait in the street.”

This time a single cry emerged from the group, made by what I supposed to be their leader, for it was positioned before all other Rattata. Since they had received their instructions, the Pokémon left our rooms as noisily as they had arrived.

“I didn’t anticipate your resource to be a band of street Rattata?” I said, looking through the window to get a last peek at the little invaders. “How does that dainty whistle work?

“The instrument produces a call particularly appreciated by Rattata’s ears.” He explained. “That is, if it is blown with grace; you may have noticed it produced no secondary effect when Brett gusted into it. I have thus attracted and befriended some Rattata over the course of the years. Eventually, we found that we could make our relationship work to our mutual advantage and so I introduced them to tracking and undercover occupations.”

There followed a moment of silence. I took the opportunity to pick up my drawing with the intention of storing it inside the drawer under the desk, but I had to relinquish my hold on the paper, as Harriet was resolutely pressing her paw on its other margin and the piece of art seemed to be at risk of getting teared. When my hand was no longer holding the sheet, Harriet gently lifted it into her mouth and carried it to my bed-room, leaving it lying on the floor next to her basket.

“You really like the drawing, love.” I said, giving her a cuddle. “Then we’ll buy a frame so you can keep it without crumpling it.”

Holmes was now standing on the threshold between the corridor and my bed-room. I thought he looked very tired and I decided to bring the matter up again.

“You should really get some sleep, my friend.” I remarked. “Will you take a couple of hour’s rest?”

“I could,” he said, “If you would do me the favour of lounging in the sitting-room in my stead in order to wait for the guest I’m expecting.”

“Are you waiting for someone?”

“Early this morning I wrote an advertisement to be published in the ‘found’ column of the most relevant newspapers, about a ring made of red thread recovered on the pavement in Little George Street. I didn’t indicate the hotel as the actual site of the discovery and didn’t mention that the knot had come undone. If the ring is a ceremonial one, it will hopefully be the source of great attachment for the one who lost it and they may go to great lengths to regain its possession. In fact, I suspect that the lone beggar near the hotel tonight was none other them Mr. Deerling’s attacker, trying to gauge an opportunity to recover the lost token.”

“Shall I offer tea to this murderer?”

“If you feel so inclined, I have no objections to it. I have already given your name as a reference, mine could get recognised by the city’s scoundrels. I will retire now, but wake me up if there is a knock and keep an eye on the drawer under the centre of the desk; that’s where I have left the red string. Ah! I’ll give you another clue to the inscription’s puzzle, if you need something to occupy your mind with.” And then he started humming a notable melody from The Poké Flute opera and on these notes he passed from my bed-room to his and closed the door. His voice faded into silence.

I lingered on the for a moment, looking at the wooden panel that separated us, then turned my head towards my Snubbull, who was now crouched in her basket, quietly staring at the Skitty’s picture. All had become suddenly and calmingly peaceful. I returned in the sitting-room, to work on the story I was at the time writing while waiting for our possible guest, as Holmes had requested.

Unsurprisingly, after some hours, my inspiration drifted from my novel to the case we had been investigating. I thus decided to see if there was any worth in the clue Holmes had given me before retiring. What could there be of use to us in the notes of an aria from The Poké Flute? I tried to hum the melody myself, softly enough not to wake my room-mate, when it occurred to me that I couldn’t remember the lyrics of the piece. Most fortunately, I shared quarters with a music enthusiast and taking a few steps up to the bookshelves near the fireplace was all I had to do to get my hands on the opera’s libretto.

The opera was written in Alemanian and the first line of the offered song was ‘ _Der Hundemon Rache kocht in meinem Herzen’_ , my readers may already know the rest. The narrative revolves around the legend of an avenging Houndoom, species for which the second opening word is a foreign translation, whose ire can be placated by playing a flute unique in its kind. I couldn’t find a connection between our case and this premise, so I endeavoured to study the text further.

Again, I tried to softly intone the melody, this time reciting the lyrics. After a couple of verses, I was startled by the maid’s cheerful interruption.

“What are you singing in so low a voice for, Dr. Watson?” Teased Martha. “Could it be that you are too timid to perform in front of an audience? That could be a hindrance if you were rehearsing for the opera.”

“Holmes and I are attending a spectacle tomorrow, but I doubt they would let me stand on the stage. My friend has gone to bed though.” I answered with a smile.

“Then I shall better lower my voice too.” She smiled in return, till her eyes turned to the soiled carpet. “You must know that-

“You are not cleaning this. Mrs. Hudson already informed Holmes that he would have to restore the state of the room on his own.”

Although the girl was initially introduced to me as the housemaid, it soon became clear that her domestic routine consisted in doing nothing more than cook and bring to our table the same meal that she prepared for the landlady, only rarely indulging more specific requirements. Her main occupation was in the field of education, for which she had opened a private business on the ground floor of our building. There she would take as students young kids from all castes of society and form them in a variety of subjects. While the enterprise was certainly noble, a secondary effect was that, while Mrs. Hudson’s Mr. Mime would occasionally wipe the dirt about all floors, we were necessitated to sort out everything else for ourselves.

“I see you have been writing.” Said Martha, taking a chair and sitting down. Her figure was propped on the lateral side of the seat and one of her arms was bent on the chair back as a support for her head.

“I have been and meant to continue,” I replied, “but Holmes had a riddle for me, connected to his last case, and the search for a solution distracted me from my earlier object.”

“That sounds intriguing. Do you care to share this riddle with me?”

“By all means. I understand from Holmes enigmatic digressions that there is a peculiarity that can only be observed on the scenes of the crimes themselves, but perhaps your fresh perspective could be of great help to me. I long to impress Mr. Holmes.”

I related the whole incident to Martha over luncheon, with special consideration to how my friend had presented to me the ‘Rachel’ puzzle and what thoughts I had already entertained on its significance. She listened to my account intently and, at the end, she asked me to see the opera’s libretto. I moved to the window, to let her concentrate on the problem without pressure.

Outside, the street was swarmed and vibrant, fuelled by its constant flow of carts and pedestrians. In the midst of all this confusion, an elderly woman attracted my attention. Unlike all other unresting individuals, she had been sitting on the steps of a house on the opposite side to 221B for quite a while. Her white head was bent over a large book, yet, during the fleeting moments in which she raised it from the pages, I could see that she donned a dreadfully pale and grave expression, entirely matched by the mourning colours of all her garments. Once or twice, I fancied my eyes to have met her own. She provided an interesting contrast with the younger lady sitting behind me in the living room, who, despite being occupied in the same fashion, remarkably differed in her age, mien and hues.

Martha, in her frilly violet dress covered by a long cream-coloured apron, was as per usual merry and lively. She could be described as a superlative beauty, with an umber complexion and hair of the blackest kind, defined in a headful of finely curled locks. Although raised in South America, her family was not original to the continent and her heritage was rather diverse, being one of her grandfathers even born in our own country.

With all her charms and agreeability, I had often wondered how, at the age of thirty, she could still be unmarried. Once I happened to voice this precise concern and she went on to explain me how she could not dream to break her duties and abandon Mrs. Hudson, a widow of some years, after serving in her household throughout all her life. Both women had relocated from the Empire of Floresta to our Albion, following Mrs. Hudson’s marriage to a local gentleman and she considered her employer all the family that remained to her.

My gaze shifted again to the street, when I caught with the corner of my eyes the older woman in the act of arduously standing to depart from her position. As I watched her disappear beyond the curve of an alleyway, I realized it was already late enough for our expected guest to knock at our door.

Martha abruptly woke me from my reverie by snapping the libretto on the tablecloth.

“I have solved it.” The girl said, her cheeks high with glee.

“The whole case?” I exclaimed, still keeping my voice low.

“That would be absurd; just the ‘Rachel’ puzzle.” She answered.

“And what is it then its solution?”

“To give you a hand would have been friendly gesture, but to pass you the complete solution would make me an accomplice to cheating. Besides, it is simple enough that you should have already solved it for yourself after Holmes gave you the last clue.”

Martha prepared to leave, while I remained temporarily speechless.

Once she raised from her chair, I got a better look at the uncovered back of her outfit and realized something that I had earlier failed to notice.

“Why are you dressed so elegantly under that apron?” I asked, but before she could answer, Mrs. Hudson’s voice reached us from the floor above.

“Martha!” Cried our landlady. “We are late.”

The girl stared for some seconds towards the ceiling, then turned her face towards me.

“You see, Dr. Watson,” she said, “Mr. Holmes might be taking you to the opera house tomorrow, but Mrs. Hudson is taking me there now. Adeus!”

She returned the libretto and left for the staircase.

It might seem that she had left without giving me any assistance, incorrectly so. As she extended the booklet in my direction, Martha kept her left hand under the open covers, while her right thumb approached, I don’t doubt by design, the third word of the aria’s first line, ‘ _Rache’_.

There I had the solution to the riddle. While the phrase ‘ _Der Hundemon Rache’_ was on the following page translated to our language as “The vengeance of the Houndoom”, the individual term stood in Alemanian for ‘Revenge’. I believed that I had finally come to the same conclusion to which Sherlock Holmes himself must have come to some months prior, that the letter ‘L’ in the word ‘Rachel’ might have been added to the original inscription to conceal its meaning. Hadn’t Holmes said that he suspected that victims of the attack not to possess a clean criminal record, yet never expanded on his reasons for thinking so? If the writings found on both sites were the mark of an avenging killer, its targets themselves could be supposed to be the perpetrators of some past horrible crime. It would also explain why Mr. Deerling would rather pretend to be wounded by a wild Crobat than to seek the protection of the police force.

I heard the sound of Holmes’ bed-room door creaking open and my dishevelled friend emerged from within its walls.

“I should have told Mrs. Hudson I was going to take a nap.” He said, plunging into an armchair near the fireplace.

“Your nap lasted several hours already.” I said, as I walked towards him. Approaching him from behind, I leaned to whisper in his ear. “’Revenge’.”

He turned around and beamed.

“Marvellous, Watson.” He exclaimed. “You have gone somewhere with that little puzzle. What thoughts have you got on that particular word?”

I repeated to him my recent considerations over a smoking session and he confirmed that they were precisely his own, congratulating me on my own success. He also confessed that for a time this clue derailed him, without results, on the trail of Alemanian nationalists. When our cigars were over, Holmes raised from his chair and looked out of the window.

“I don’t suppose anybody came to visit.” He said.

“Not a soul.” I responded. “But it’s still early. Our invitee might not have read your advertisement yet.”

“I know, but the wait wears me. This case has laid dormant within my hands for far too long.” My friend complained, pacing up and down the room. After a while, he stopped and opened the central drawer of the desk. “Have you moved the piece of string, Watson?”

“Why? No.” I returned. Holmes’ features twisted into an expression of fury and worry, as he started shuffling the contents above and within the piece of furniture.

“It is not here anymore!” He shouted.

“Maybe you brought it in your chamber.” I proposed.

“I know perfectly well that I didn’t.”

“Holmes, these rooms are the epitome of disorganization, I’m sure you the thing will reappear as soon as you calm down and search for it with method.”

“I put it in the central drawer!” He roared, producing in me for the second time a sting of unease and indignation. Holmes continued with his unpleasant rant. “Somebody took it, somebody was in here. Watson, have you fallen asleep as well? I know I didn’t let you rest last night.”

“You asked me not to and I didn’t.” I replied sternly.

“Did anyone else came in the room?”

“Only Martha, we lunched together and she helped me with the riddle.”

“For god’s sake, Watson, have you told her the details of the case? How could you be so careless? My work is of confidential nature.”

“I swore her to secrecy and I trust her absolutely!”

“What is done is done,” He grimaced, out of control, “but the string must be retrieved or our chances to get our hands on its owner will be significantly reduced. I’m going to have a talk with the girl.”

“You will do no such thing. I forbid it!” I objected with passion. “You very well know Martha has nothing to do with it, you must know! Stop pacing!”

Holmes stopped abruptly, his body tense and his fists clenched.

“I know she didn’t take the string.” He said. “Still…”

“Still?”

“I do not know what to do.” He admitted. “I have been beaten. This killer has once again escaped me.”

“I’ll tell you what to do.” I said, taking him by the arms and pulling him towards the fireplace. “Sit in your chair and calm yourself down. You’ve been out of your wits throughout all day, you will not get anywhere with your investigation while in this state.”

He followed my instructions and relaxed on the seat. I did the same, drawing my own closer, so that I could hold his trembling hands.

“Watson,” he began once again, “why is the fire lit? It has been very warm since this morning.”

“You think so?” I cried, a little surprised. “We were chilling early in the afternoon. I can assure you that it had nothing to do with my poor health, Martha was in total agreement. We even had some issues keeping the fire alive; it seems like we might have some drafts in our house.”

“I see.” Holmes murmured. The man remained in silence for a good quarter of an hour, his features inscrutable. Suddenly, he sprung onto his feet, with wide eyes and gritted teeth. “I have been a short-sighted fool.”

He charged into his bed-room and returned shortly after fully dressed and combed.

“Are you going out?” I enquired.

“I have to pay a visit to the library.” He responded. “Please wait for me at home, the Rattata might report back at any moment.”

Gradually, Baker Street emptied and the evening became quieter and quieter. Alone in the building, but for the presence of the Pokémon, I inked a pen and restarted the work on my novel.

With the arrival of sunset, my Chansey came out of her poké ball to prepare for the night shift at PatholoMew’s Hospital. Before leaving, she snuggled to my back and hugged me. In addition to being very skilled at her profession, Murray had a talent for understanding people’s emotions and she always comforted me whenever she felt that I was stealing into melancholy.

When Martha and Mrs. Hudson returned from their outing, I thanked my friend for the help she had given me earlier with the ‘Rachel’ puzzle. She told me to make nothing of it and with a wink excused herself, as she felt somewhat tired and had a wish to retire for the night.

Holmes didn’t return till the day was almost over and, when he did, he not only found me impatiently waiting for him in the sitting-room, but the leader of the Rattata’s band too.

“Watson! And Wiggins! Just the ones I need.” He greeted us, as he came through the door with a large leather-bound volume under one arm, a small paper bag clasped on the other hand and a lens attached to his head in the same fashion in which one would fasten an eye-patch. “Wiggins, have you located the Skitty with the red mantle?”

The Pokémon squealed and bounced its head affirmatively, while I stared at the man with stupefaction.

“Very well.” Said Holmes. He took a map of Fumelot City from the cabinet and laid it open on the ground. “Where can we find it?”

Wiggins’ paw hovered over the map and landed on the White Chapel district.

“Perfect.” My friend exclaimed. “Watson, put on your coat, we need to get to the area straightaway, but we’ve got little more than half an hour to reach our destination.”

“We might already be too late for that, Holmes.” I said. “How do we even travel there? It’s past eleven.”

 “I hired a hansom and its driver for the whole night. I’ll explain everything that I’ve discover on our way there. Come, quick. You too Wiggins. And I’ll have to ask Brett to join us, we cannot go undefended.”

As we were about to close the front door, dear Harriet slipped out of the house and started barking.

“We are too late to argue with you.” Holmes told her. “Mount on the hansom.”

My companion demanded my attention the instant the cab started to move along the granite.

“Watson, did you have dinner?” He asked.

“By this time? Of course I did.” I answered.

“You will have to eat at least one of these regardless.” He said, dropping the bag he was carrying right onto my lap. I peeked into the package and spotted half-a-dozen bright-pink-coloured fruits.

“Why do you want me to eat a kasib berry?”

“You are a doctor, you know what their effect is.”

“They lower the effectiveness of ghost-type moves.”

“There you have it.” My friend cut short. He selected one of the berries and put it in my hand, then replaced the bag resting on my knees with the old book he had brought along with him. He flung the volume open to a page topped by the word ‘Rache’ written in big letters, further containing the subheading ‘Für den Geliebten’, which in Alemanian means ‘For the lover’, and followed by some paragraphs in the same foreign tongue. On the adjacent sheet were included illustrations of two piercing items unfamiliar to me.

“What is this?” I enquired.

“Don’t you understand? This is a grimoire, entirely dedicated to dark magic to be precise. You do remember how I remarked that there was no reason for the murderer to capture a Crobat, take its fangs and arrange them to work as poisoned daggers, when a regular knife would have sufficed for the purpose of killing a person. That, in conjunction with the word ‘Revenge’, made me suspect that Drebber’s homicide was of ritualistic nature. At first, I suspected the involvement of an Alemanian masonic order, as secret societies are wont to fall in this kind of customs. But read here.” He went on translating the text directly in our language. “‘In order to reinforce the spectral presence in the material world of one’s deceased beloved, when this was removed from it by the means of violent murder, conform to the following passages:  
      I.   At the turn of a new day;  
      II.  Request the assistance of the spirits of death by marking the site of the procedure with the word ‘revenge’;  
      III. Shed the blood of your beloved’s assassins by stabbing them in the chest with the venom-filled tooth of a Crobat.’  
So, you see, it was a ritual, but a supernatural one. The killer is a-”

“Ghost.” I finished the sentence.

“A medium, Watson. The revenge is perpetuated by the surviving lover. There is a ghost, there always but I reckon it is just an accomplice.”

“There was a ghost at Chiselled Hills Caves.” I recalled.

“The two things are in all probability related, given that it appeared in the same cavern where the trap in which the Crobat was captured could be found. It was also a ghost who took the string from our desk this very afternoon. You could not see it, but you could feel the room growing colder and you did have trouble keeping the fire alive. Those are all effects of a ghostly presence. Which brings us to this.” He tapped his index finger on the glass latched to his right eye. “It is a spectral scope, a lens studied to increase the capability of visualizing ghosts in our plane. It is rather lucky that I understood there was one in the killers’ party when you mentioned today’s troubles with the temperature. First of all, it led me to realize that we were possibly dealing with a medium and consequently that the inscription could have an enchanted nature, hence my visit to the library’s supernatural section; and second, if the ghost had sneaked out on us, it could have caused serious harm, but now we can go prepared to the encounter.”

“What encounter?”

“Our revengeful lover’s third attempt at killing Mr. Stantlerson. Remember the concerns we debated? One, there is no usefulness for a beggar in occupying an empty street in the cold night instead of seeking shelter. Two, an injured Mr. Stantlerson, under the alias of Deerling, went out of his way to drop something in that beggar’s hands. I suspect that a skirmish occurred in the hotel room between Stantlerson and the beggar, in which they tried to end each other’s life and during which the first got wounded and the window broken. The fight would have ended with the death of one or the other, had not Mr. and Mrs. Sacker interrupted them. At this point Stantlerson might have decided to venture outside and slip a note to his attacker, to propose another encounter and settle the dispute once and for all.”

“And when would this encounter be?”

“Whatever was written on Stantlerson note, the avenger will show up at midnight, as required by the incantation, and we must reach the location of the encounter by then.”

“And how are we to know the location of that encounter?”

“If the inscription on the tree and on the wall was meant to be ‘Rache’ instead of ‘Rachel’, who concealed it with the addition of an ‘L’? Upon examination of the scratches, it was evident that the last letter had been scraped by a finer point than the first five had been, hence likely to be appended by another individual. After discussing the first attack on the grounds in which it took place, we have a Skitty following us, wearing a mantle made of the same material as the ring found in Stantlerson’s hotel room, so that we might conjecture that the Pokémon is connected with the murderer. A Skitty’s minute claw certainly fits the thinness of the scratches that produced the ‘L’. If my deductions are correct, on both occasions, the Skitty was at the location of the attacks, during the attacks, in order to protect the killer and, if we can find the Skitty now, we will find the new battleground between Stantlerson and this vengeful lover.”

“And what about the strange imprint on the blood patch?” I asked at last.

“I haven’t got the faintest idea.” Admitted my companion. “I have not had a free moment to consider the matter since falling onto this other, hopefully correct, train of thoughts. If we could only terminate this investigation before the next sun rises, I’d hate to miss tomorrow’s concert.”

We remained in silence for the rest of the journey, eating our kasib berries, our anxiety ever-increasing,

Once we arrived in White Chapel, we all descended from the hansom.

“Wait for us here.” Said Holmes to the cabman.

“Till the hour I’ve been bidden.” Responded the man from under his thick black collar and scarf. Holmes offered him an additional sum of money, but the cabman refused. Then my companion turned to Wiggins.

“Where to now?” He asked the Rattata. The little Pokémon started scurrying along the street and we followed its lead.


	7. The Battleground

“Holmes, I am sceptical about this course of action.” I panted, trying to keep pace with the little rat ahead of us. “Wiggins came to wait for you at our lodgings over an hour ago. The Skitty will most certainly have moved since the Rattata last spotted it”.

“Naturally.” My companion returned. “This is why, after the search party finds its target, the group reorganizes in a chain formation not to lose its tracks. One of the Rattata keeps guard over a fixed base in the spot where the object is first located; its duty is to wait for the return of the mate who left to guide me there. If any changes occur, the rest of the pack will follow the target’s movements and send out a member to report back to base. If the target moves a long way from where it was originally spotted, additional bases might be formed. Of course, there might be some complications. For example, when a Rattata separates from the pack to deliver new information to the base, it might have some trouble reconnecting with the search party, if this has moved before its return. This is not much of a problem, since, as long as there are enough trackers at the target’s current location, there should be a mean for the position to be communicated to the base, where I am supposed to pick up the thread.”

“A clever scheme.” I said.

“From some clever little fellows.” Holmes agreed. “Look, Watson. We are departing from the main street; it is time to light our lanterns.”

We passed through a sequence of turns and back alleys, until we stopped before a moderately high wooden fence, sparsely covered in advertisements. Wiggins climbed over the barrier and set to wait for us at the top of the planks. While I was at a loss as to what our next steps should be, Holmes was already examining the fence for an aperture. He came upon a secured, yet not very resistant gate and forced it open, rendering us able to get past the obstacle. The interior of the enclosure was but a broad space devoid of buildings, laid with dirt and sporting a large pit in the middle.

“It seems to me like we find ourselves inside of a construction yard.” I said. “There’s never homes enough in this damn overcrowded city.”

“No, Watson, it is not homes who are being built in this ground.” Holmes replied.

“What then?”

He motioned for me to come near the edge of the ditch, where I could see that he was pointing his torch at an opening close to its bottom, starting a tunnel that travelled below the surface of the city. As we were lost in contemplation of the uncovered feature, another Rattata emerged from that very conduit and greeted us. Wiggins run down the pit’s wall to meet with is kin and, after a brief conversation in their own squealing jargon, the two turned upwards and made a call for us to follow. My Snubbull readily descended on the steep ramp, but for Holmes and me the enterprise was not as easy.

“We’ll need a ladder.” He said.

“I see no need for a ladder.” I answered. “I once tumbled off a precipice for you.”

“Pray, when did that happen?”

“At the Chiselled Hills Caves, when you were moaning on the ground.”

“I believe I remember now, although the visibility was dreadfully low and I felt rather disoriented. Still there is a need for one correction: I wasn’t moaning.”

“I found you by following your moans.”

“Between the Crobat’s growls and my Koffing’s explosion, I doubt that any moans of mine were the noise that you followed or that you would have been able to hear them at all.”

“A likely retort on your part.”

“In any case, there is no need for you to tumble off a precipice for me this time, there’s a ladder right over there. What building site would this be otherwise?”

We reached the Pokémon and, instructed by the second Rattata, we proceeded to explore the subterranean tunnel.

“A nightly visit to the uncompleted sewers.” I commented.

“You cannot fault me for my choice of venues.” Holmes responded, but his attention was concentrated on the ground. “We are lucky enough to find some clear tracks marking the dirt. You’d expect the path to be littered with workmen’s footprints, but construction on this part of the conduit seem to have halted for some time. To our benefit, there is also the fact that the terrain is humid enough to regularly erase older impressions; some protections must have been set to prevent the rain from freely flowing down the channel before its completion, yet enough water is still able to intrude and smooth the ground.”

“What can you read in these marks?”

“Here’s the picture that I am forming. There are the imprints of four Rattata, all going forward except one, which goes once towards the opening and twice in the direction in which we are heading. This means that one of the tracker must have temporarily turned back to report on the new position of the Skitty.” My companion then moved to another group of adjacent footprints, made up by a pair tiny three-fingered paws and a track of human feet. “These are from the Skitty and its trainer; the shape of the boots and the length of the stride all coincide with the muddy imprints on the sidewalk out of Cherry Laurel Gardens. As for these last marks over her, they are from another person, considerably tall, Stantlerson I presume; and he’s accompanied by something bigger, a Raticate.”

“So we’ll be dealing two people, each accompanied by a Pokémon,” I said, “unless one of them carry some inside of poké balls.”

“You are not accounting for the possibility of flying or levitating Pokémon.”

“Of course, the ghost-type with the Skitty’s trainer might not leave a footprint.”

“Precisely.” Holmes confirmed. “By choosing a Raticate, a normal type, as his companion, I gather that Stantlerson might have figured out his rival keeps a ghost type. It is common knowledge that normal-type moves won’t affect  ghost-type Pokémon, but the reverse is also true. Besides, Raticate usually know Bite, a dark-type move.”

“That is super effective against a ghost-type Pokémon.”

“By the way, Watson, I hope you did not drink much wine during dinner.”

“A glass, perhaps a little more. Does it matter?”

“Have you asked yourself how Stantlerson managed to escape the first assault in the park, while Drebber did not?”

“I thought we agreed that Drebber had been paralyzed.”

“There are uncountable Pokémon that are able to learn paralyzing moves,” Holmes said, “but I presume it was either the work of the Skitty, of the ghost type or of them both. The question is why would the assailants succeed in immobilizing the first man enough to kill him and not the other?”

“Maybe they didn’t have the time. In addition, paralysis does not completely impede movement.”

“I find it unlikely that, with the advantage of surprise and planning, Stantlerson’s immobilization was not reached for those reasons.”

“What do you think then?” I asked.

“Stantlerson is not a drinker, we heard him say so ourselves. On the contrary, I can testify that Drebber’s body reeked of alcohol. I believe the murderer planned an ambush after his victims spent a night at the pub, expecting them to be weakened by mankind’s vices. Yet one of them stayed sober and paralysis alone could not prevent his escape.”

“Then I assure you that am not drunk.”

“Likewise and I trust us to be as strong as Stantlerson. Even if we get affected by paralysis, we should still be able to fight.”

All of a sudden, although we should have expected it had we not been too engrossed to look at our watches, the air was filled with the twelve midnight chimes coming from White Chapel’s bell tower.

“Holmes,” I said, “it is midnight already, we are too late!”

“Let us not despair, Watson.” My friend responded. “There is still hope that the confrontation might go on for a little while.”

It was not a minute later that we heard the sound of running footsteps approaching from the opposite direction and a Raticate flied past our party. In anticipation of imminent danger, Holmes readily let his Koffing out of his poké ball.

“That must be Stantlerson’s Pokémon.” I said.

“I believe so.” My companion murmured. “And an unfaithful associate to abandon its trainer in the moment of need; I wouldn’t be surprised to discover he has caught it this very day. We are approaching the site of the encounter and from now on we must keep absolutely quiet, if we don’t want to alert our adversaries. That goes for you too Harriet, no barking, our lives may depend upon our silence.”

My Snubbull surprisingly followed Holmes’ instructions and closed her mouth completely, that not a huff would come out of it.

We rushed again along the corridor till the Rattata abruptly stopped. When we reached our guides, we saw that the group had halted before the forms of their four band mates unconsciously lying on the ground. I dropped on my knees to check on their condition.

“They are just asleep.” I whispered.

“This is bad Watson.” Holmes said, his voice almost too low to be received. “Now we have to fear deep sleep from this cat and this ghost in addition to paralysis. I dare say when paralysis failed to work with certainty, the murderer decided to try out other status conditions. Wiggins, stay here with your friends, we can follow the tracks on our own. Come tomorrow at 221B for your reward. There is nothing you can do for those Rattata now, Watson, and they are not in mortal danger. Follow me, we are close to an assembly of criminals, and do not hesitate to close the shutter on your lantern entirely if you perceive anybody in our vicinity.”

Our movements became more prudent. The soft terrain was of great help in muffling the sound of our footsteps, but the empty conduit unavoidably echoed every single noise produced within its walls, no matter how faint. Without the clatter of the daylight activities coming from above to fill the environment, I wondered if our presence couldn’t be given away by our heavy breathing alone and, with no object to conceal our figures, I felt naked to the sight of the enemy we were supposed to be hunting.

Worried as I was with my own exhalations, I was caught by surprise by the sudden stir of stony material some little distance ahead of me, so that I was compelled to shut my light as an immediate response.

My companion, who had been closer to the source of the disturbance, had not equally followed his own instruction and kept his light open instead. Before I had time to extensively question his motifs, he turned back to lead me by the hand right on the spot he had been standing and lowered his lantern to the ground. From that point forward, a gravelly aggregate replaced the dirt in its composition. Holmes rested one of his feet at the margin to show me that his own step had generated the sound that had alarmed me, then reopened one of the panels covering my lamp’s lens. We had no choice but to advance regardless of the increased possibility to warn our targets.

The reason behind the change was soon revealed to us, when, as we progressed into the tunnel, we met with another explanatory development. The path started sporting four neat metallic tracks, running parallel to each other and with a wider gap between the pair in the middle than between the pairs on the sides. It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that we had stumbled upon two railways, as the element is beyond unlikely to be found in the stream bed of the sewerage. Given the impossibility of the discovery, I had to readjust one of the initial assumption, in that we were not exploring an incomplete tract of the sewers at all. In fact, the presence of a railway made it quite evident that we found ourselves in the obvious alternative, the Fumelot Underground.

I could recall discontinued plans to connect the White Chapel district to the inner city via rapid transit and I determined us to have entered the very hideaways these arrangements had formed.

Momentarily distracted from the tension by this unforeseen reverie, I was reminded of the urgency of my situation when a chill drift of air passed through the tunnel and blew Holmes’ Koffing backwards till he bumped on my nose. I describe these few seconds from touch rather than sight, for all our lamps had gone out as a result of the current, a preoccupying occurrence seeing that both flames had been protected by a resistant case.

The deficiency was soon supplied by a brightening light some thirty feet ahead of us, but unlike the yellow warmth that had extinguished from our lanterns, this one was an unnatural glow, pale and bluish. I remember the last time I had encountered such light and I pressed my mouth to Holmes’ ear with the intention to utter the name of the menace that waited in our path. Still I refrained myself from breathing any sound; it would have been revealing and unnecessary. My friend must have known as well as I that we had finally found our ghost.

Holmes took my arm and pulled me to stand by the wall on our left to gain a degree of cover; we quietly advance along this line. As we approached, I could see that two wide raised platforms interrupted the wall on both sides of the tunnel, no doubt the beginnings of an underground station, and that the light was coming from a multitude of ethereal flames suspended above the one we were nearer to and most sheltered from.

We reached the platform and hid below its edge, sticking out our heads to observe the elevated area. An unconscious person was lying on its floor, yet it was otherwise empty. Looking around for the source of their condition, I spotted another defenceless figure between the railways; it was the red-mantled Skitty. I tried to point out the presence of the Pokémon to Holmes, but his eyes were transfixed on a spot on the far border of the platform. After some moments, he gently removed the lens before his eye and offered it to me. I donned the apparel, then turned my head to face the direction in which Holmes had been staring.

Ominous, gaseous and larger than I would have expected, a Haunter levitated in that corner, its monster-like features piercing a hole through my terrified soul.

“I believe there is no more need for our silence, Watson.” My companion murmured. “The ghost is aware of our presence.”

“The menacing cut of its eyes and the dented shape of its mouth are enough to make a grown man shiver.” I said, returning the lens to Holmes.

“You have good reason to be afraid. It is said that Haunter can lick the life out of their preys. But they can also contribute to a decrease of the ambient temperature, so it might just be that you are shuddering out of cold.”

“Are you?”

We kept sharing the glass to observe the creature and the creature observed us in turn, as if it was waiting for us to make the first move.

Holmes was whispering some instructions to his Koffing, yet I never became privy as to their nature, for their action was interrupted by my foolish Snubbull jumping right onto the platform and, with no lack of courage or forceful barks, launching towards the Haunter to strike an attack.

“Harriet!” I desperately cried.

I climbed myself onto the platform to stop her from running into her demise; for a moment I feared I was too late already. The Haunter had detached one hand from the rest of its body to clasp it around my Snubbull’s entire form, effectively impeding her advance. Within its touch, Harriet collapsed on the ground. The ghostly hand retreated afterwards.

Promptly, I rushed to my dear little dog’s aid and, to my amazement, I discovered that like all other unconscious people and Pokémon on the site, she had just been place into a forced sleep.

“How is she?” Holmes asked, after joining me on the battleground.

“Alive.” I answered. “Do you have a plan to defeat that thing before it kills us? Or eat us? Dangling that big tongue before its jaw, it seems that its plans are to devour us.”

“Brett knows a couple of moves, or rather one move, to counter ghost Pokémon, but I don’t think he will have to use it.”

“Why not?”

“Because the Pokémon is not aggressive.”

“How can you tell? It appears so to me.”

“It has made no efforts to attack us, only to defend itself. You have also described its current appearance without the aid of the spectral scope, which means that the ghost has become visible to you.”

“It has indeed.”

“And since you don’t have supernatural powers, it means that the Pokémon voluntarily choose to reveal itself. An enemy wouldn’t normally give up the advantage of invisibility. Whose body is lying over there?”

“Wait a moment.” I said, before repositioning. The station was dark, but I could still make out some lineaments in the feeble ghost light. “It’s Mr. Deerling, or Stantlerson if your deductions are correct. He also is alive.”

The foreigner was stretched chest down on the pavement with his head laterally angled. Unlike the Rattata and the Skitty, Stantlerson was unresting in his unconsciousness. He breathed raggedly and his pulse rate exceeded the ordinary range. I tried to roll him on his side, when my palm sank on a tepid liquid substance. By the warmth and consistency, I determined that I had my hand in a pool of blood.

I withdrew my arm and looked over the man to uncover the source of the haemorrhage, but, before the darkness rendered me able to discern any injury, my attention was caught by a whitish element that had distinguished itself by virtue of its fair coloration. I leaned closer to ascertain its nature and I could see that the object had a rectangular shape terminating in multiple barbs.

“Holmes!” I cried. “There is an enormous tooth on the floor. It could be a Crobat’s!”

To my disconcert, my friend remained unmoved by my call. He firmly kept his position in front of the Haunter with his Koffing at his side, lost to a match of staring, even after I repeated my his name.

Stantlerson began to agitate severely, in a way that required my ready intervention as a medical doctor. I hastily removed his coat and jacket, but that didn’t cease my inability to locate the precise point in which his flesh and clothes had been teared; still I recognised conspicuous bleeding from minor wounds as a possible symptom of anticoagulated blood and exposure to venom from the Zubat family, a diagnosis compliant with the nearby weapon. Without further delay, I put my hand in my coat’s internal pocket to retrieve my syringe and Holmes’ recently discovered antidote, which I had often carried about with me since the day the man presented it to me upon our first meeting and never forgotten on those particular occasions from which one could expect its potential use.

I plunged the needle into the small phial and filled the syringe’s barrel until all liquid had been transferred from the first container to the other, then I injected the anti-venin in Stantlerson’s arm. The man’s eyes shot open and a scream emerged from his mouth, as he violently regained consciousness. He sat, leaning on his straight, stiff arms and looked at the instrument in my hold, then at the fang lying on the ground.

“You are safe now.” I said. “I’ve administered you one dose of a medicine that will protect to you from the effects of poisoning.”

However my patient didn’t react with the degree of gratitude that I would have expected; in fact he felt none. Instead, he grabbed the Crobat’s tooth and wielded it in the space between us. Instinctively, I adopted a defensive stance, covering my face with crossed arms. The venomous point scratched my elbow and it became my turn to vocalize my pain.

Stantlerson raised his hand on me one second time, but this once Holmes caught him by the wrist. The two began to wrestle, the fang menacingly hanging in the middle.

Holmes’ Koffing deemed more cautious not to disengage his attention from the Haunter, yet his trainer was not left to fight this battle without help. Harriet, perhaps as a result of the shrieking, had already woken up from her sleep and hurried to fasten her teeth on Stantlerson’s leg, letting a charge of electricity flow through is body. One round of Thunder Fang would have effectively debilitated the average man, but not one as strong as our opponent, who was only infuriated by the attack and kicked my Snubbull in retaliation.

It is the order of the world that a villainy which touches many cannot go unpunished, for that many will ally against you. The Skitty jumped on the platform and bit on Stantlerson’s shirt collar. In response the foreigner seized his attacker’s red mantle in an attempt to remove it from his back, however the contrasting forces involved in the struggle were so impressive that a few stitches in the garment ripped, causing the man to lose his balance and fall off the edge of the underground station along with the Pokémon. For some instants, we heard nothing from them both, then the Skitty’s paws and head appeared behind the border and soon its whole figure resurfaced. We watched the little critter as it scuttled towards the Haunter and settled below its levitating mass.

“What happened to your arm?” Holmes asked of me. “You are bleeding profusely.”

“I’ve been hit with that damned fang.” I answered in distress. “Crobat’s anticoagulant has entered my circulatory system.”

“Then you shall use the bottle of anti-venin that I gave you.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? Do you not carry it in your pocket?”

“I did, but I already used it on Stantlerson.”

Holmes furrowed his brow and rummaged in his own jacket.

“Here, take mine.” He said, offering me another phial. I was about to accept when I noticed a long red cut that started under Holmes’ middle finger and run down his arm, barely visible through the torn sleeve.

“You have been hurt by the fang too.” I said.

“My injury is not as serious as yours.”

“I beg to differ, mine is much more superficial.”

“Yet you are losing more blood than I am. Give me the syringe, you are already confused, it is better if you let me do the injection.”

“You’ll use that bloody dose on yourself, Holmes.” I cried, my voice ragged. I could already feel my internal organs beginning to fail, my heartbeat escalating and the taste of blood in my mouth; the haemorrhage was extending to my entire body. “I won’t deprive you of your chance of safety after carelessly wasting mine.”

“My dear friend,” said Holmes, who in the meantime has retrieved the syringe by himself and was already preparing it with the antidote. “You are not depriving me of anything. All I need are a clean wound and good stitches, and we’ll get to it once we have countered the venom in your system.”

“What about the venom in your system?” I demanded.

“That is not an issue.” He answered, taking the wrist of my injured arm in his left hand, while holding the needle with the other. “I have avoided telling you, as I feared you would not approve of the practice, but I have behaved in a way that has caused me to develop an artificial immunity to poison from the Zubat family. For the past few months, I have let a couple of specimen release non-lethal doses of their toxins into my arm, to fortify my system against their venom and use my blood as a base for the anti-venin, so that its properties could be isolated and replicated. It was essential to the development of the treatment. I don’t need to use this formula on myself because I am already immune to the poison. I don’t need to use this formula on myself because this formula is myself and I want to give that to you.”

“I understand what you are saying, but I cannot risk it to be a lie.”

“Look at me, John Watson.” He said, as he brought my fingers to his face, so that in the darkness I could feel what I could not see. “That day at the Chiselled Hills Caves, you saved my life. Tonight, let my intervention save yours.”

His words had so softened my heart that, before I could think any better, my arm had in kind extended to allow Holmes to administer me the antidote.

When the moment was passed, I relaxed onto the floor; the solution was already taking effect.

“What are the Pokémon doing over there?” I asked, with a glance at the Haunter, the Skitty and Holmes’ Koffing.

“I suppose they are concurring that there should be no further battling in this closed environment with all of their trainers injured.” Holmes smiled wearily.

“You mean that Drebber’s murderer is still here and injured?”

“Lying at the bottom of a ramp of stairs right behind the Haunter. It is hard to make anything out from here, for the corner is not illuminated and the medium seems to be wearing a black robe, but, If you were to get closer, you could see the white head of an old woman with a bandage around her shoulder.”

“Or I could see her now. The Haunter is lifting her from the ground.”

“They are leaving.” My companion said.

“Holmes!” I exclaimed. “I swear I saw that woman reading a book outside of our house this afternoon. She stayed on the pavement at opposite side of the street for quite a while.”

“That must have been when she sent the Haunter in 221B in order to recuperate the red string.”

The ghost carried its trainer out of the room in a tender embrace and the Skitty followed along. After their party had left, the faint cerulean lights above our heads all extinguished. I heard Holmes feel the floor for our lanterns and, after a minute, we were again assisted by a warm flame.

As soon as we regained visibility, my friend was on his feet, examining our surroundings.

“Stantlerson is dead.” He said. “Hit his head on the rails.”

“I cannot be sorry for that.” I returned.

“Yet his only wound is the one from yesterday night. He was never poisoned.”

“But all the symptoms were there!” I cried.

“What symptoms?”

“To begin, a pool of blood under his body.”

“That would be the medium’s blood. Stantlerson must have shot her.”

“Shot her?”

“As I said, she had a bandaged shoulder, over her dress, I dare say hastily applied by the Haunter. And there is a gun, one bullet missing.” He said, collecting a revolver not far behind me.

“All this fits but for one detail.” I observed.

“Which detail?” Holmes asked.

“That we didn’t hear any shot!”

“It all must have happened at midnight.” My friend explained. “That is the hour at which the murder was to happen according to the spell book. The tolls from White Chapel’s bell have covered the sound.”

“So why was Mr. Stantlerson agitating in his unconscious state?”

“He was put to sleep before his attempting murderer. He was probably just having a nightmare.”

“Then I really did waste your antidote.”

“Don’t guilt yourself over a practical decision, I will just have to produce some more. As to the matter of why everybody was asleep when we arrived to the scene except for the Haunter, my guess is that our ghost had no wish to take part in its trainer’s homicidal plan and, after the situation escalated, hypnotized Stantlerson, the medium and all Pokémon close to the platform.”

“The Raticate managed to escape.” I remembered.

“Is it not said of Raticate that running away is their special ability?” Holmes joked.

After a brief laugh, we wrote some lines in my note-book, teared the page, folded it in a handkerchief and finally gave it to my Snubbull with the task to summon our cabman outside of White Chapel’s work-in-progress underground station.

As we waited for our ride to the police headquarters, I asked Holmes what he intended to do about the medium.

“To find her and make her explain her reasons.” He told me. “I shall try the Rattata one more time, but there is no guarantee that a trick works twice after being exposed.”

“And are we still attending tomorrow’s concert?” I asked, out of the blue.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” My friend said, a thin grin lighting up his face.

We took the staircase to the ground floor and fortunately found the exit door unlocked and wide open. Just a few minutes after, a light appeared at the bent of the street, produced by the fiery mane of the Rapidash who had been drawing our hansom. The vehicle stopped a few feet away from us, revealing my Snubbull barking from its window.

Holmes approached the driver’s seat, but, to our utter disbelief, it was unoccupied, except for a stash of empty clothes topped by a homburg. My companion lifted the hat to find a note hidden underneath, minutely scrabbled on the unused side of the same piece of paper which we had earlier entrusted to Harriet.

It so went:

 

_To the attention of Mr. Sherlock Holmes,_

_Midnight has passed and my spectre is not the stronger for it, so I believe that you are among those I’m indebted to for interfering with my girl’s plan to become twice a killer._

_In truth, I must confess that, following my own murder, my spirit was lost to rage and madness, and it was I who drove my beloved on the path of vengeance. When I regained control of my faculties, I realized how much harm I had inflicted upon my darling, but it was already too late._

_Before one year since my death had passed, she was practicing mediumship. After five, she started delving into necromancy with the aim to restore my person by means of that nefarious spell which you have found in the grimoire, involving the killing of my and her fathers’ assassins._

_The materiality I gained from Drebber’s murder rendered me able to pose as a cabman and assist you in preventing Stantlerson’s._

_I do not wish to haunt this world anymore, I do not wish for revenge. All I desire is to rest in the knowledge that my girl is mending the heart I corrupted._

_Yours late,_

_Jefferson Hope_


	8. The Flower of Unuta

“So not one, but two ghosts.” I said, while preparing my cup of tea after a few hours of sleep. We had spent the remainder of the night in Stoutland Yard’s headquarters, where the police interrogated us regarding our involvement in the underground ordeal. When I entered the sitting-room, my companion was already energetically pacing before the fireplace, with his pipe in his mouth, and, when he joined me at the table for breakfast, he informed me that he had already consumed his own, but he could do with an early luncheon. I had to wonder if he had even closed eyes at all. “You have to admit, Holmes, that this case would certainly titillate the senses of any spiritualist.”

“The faithful Haunter and the departed Jefferson Hope.” Holmes commented. “Both must bear great love for this lady to obstruct her plans in account of the integrity of her soul. The man renounces at a chance to wander again into this world and the Pokémon, as I understand, would have gained its fair share of power and experience by participating to another ritual.”

“What will happen to Hope now?” I asked.

“I am not an expert on ghosts, but it seems like he has a wish to find his peace and depart to another plane. He might already have done or do so as soon as his unresolved issues and unfinished businesses will be cease to be an obstacle.”

“And how do you suppose our actions are going to influence this wish? Will he be appeased if we deliver his woman into the hands of the police?

“Watson, I cannot be sure, but we might have to entertain the possibility of letting her escape the bars and the noose, were it to be ascertained that her two targets had brutally murdered her father and her lover. In either case, she is in need of medical and mental help, and I would still wish to interrogate the lady before taking a decision. Incidentally, before you woke up, little Wiggins came to collect the reward and I offered him a similar prize if the Rattata could find the Skitty a second time, but as I already told you…”

“That ploy has already been exposed.” I finished his sentence, but I had also other concerns. “With Stantlerson dead and with the knowledge that they have been discovered, don’t you think they might have left the city?”

“Depends on the extent of the lady’s injury and its effect on her ability to travel. A bloody wound could be superficial as well as not.”

“But who is she? This medium.”

“Mrs. Hope, if the red string is a wedding ring. Hope’s fiancée if it just held the promise of a marriage. I telegraphed to Salt Lake City, a few hours ago, asking if they had any Jefferson Hope in their records, especially one connected with either Drebber or Stantlerson, and what else those records might hold.”

Our meal continued in silence. When Holmes finished his beans, he dipped below the table, and when he reappeared, he startled me by forcefully planting a big old laboratory flask between the teapot and the sugar bowl.

“What is that?” I cried, pointing at the white watery liquid still shaking inside the container.

“A very valuable chemical substance, my dear Watson, which should never be missed in a respectable establishment. That is to say, a soda ash solution. I have quite a few mud stains to remove from carpets before we leave for the concert and I expect this preparation to be of immense use.”

“Is there a clause somewhere according to which you can’t attend the concert unless you are done with the cleaning?”

“If I say there is,” He asked coyly, “will you help me with the task, so as to avoid the risk of not being in time?”

“You were being rather transparent and I was already meaning to offer you a hand.” I answered, creating some space between the soda and the food to prevent contamination. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you alone in this adventure.”

 

When we returned from the theatre that evening, in the glow of one particularly enjoyable performance, we found Wiggins duly standing on our doorstep to report on his and his mates’ assignment. The Pokémon shook his head at all of Holmes’ enquiries about the lady and her Skitty, then kindly waited outside for the accorded compensation. As we watched him join his band further down the street, our feelings of elation began to fade in light of the Rattata’s failure and the renewed immersion in the case. The scene repeated with some variation for eight days in a row and, on the morning of the ninth, Holmes approached me with some considerations on my tardy sleeping habits, which ultimately tied to the matter.

“Had you woken up five minutes earlier,” He said in a whisper, after bringing his chair closer to mine, “you’d have noticed that your Snubbull had been missing.”

“This couldn’t possibly be true!” I exclaimed. Holmes hushed me down with his fingers and a reproachful stare, so I lowered my tone. “Harriet was in her basket when I got out of bed.”

“But I am telling you she wasn’t before. Could your sleep be so heavy that you have not heard your own window being opened and closed? Do not doubt my word, I have personally spied her sliding on the kitchen’s roof from behind my bedroom’s curtain and I can testify that she went out at nine and returned but five minutes before your Chansey woke you up.”

“She can have no business out the house alone.” I muttered.

“I can tell you more, Watson. These escapades have been going on for almost a week.”

“I cannot believe this, Holmes. Are you suggesting that my Harriet, whose life has been entirely spent between the pillow and the window sill, has some secret agenda out there in the world and that Murray, which has been my partner for the better half of a decade, is helping her behind my back?”

“The dog could not have succeeded in returning before being missed with such constancy without the help of your Chansey. Murray has the opportunity to keep you distracted or, better yet, asleep; moreover, had she not been in Harriet’s confidence, she would have easily discovered the clandestine trips herself.”

Hurt by the notion that both my Pokémon distrusted me to the point of conspiring and withholding their movements from me, I fell into a taciturn mood and, when Harriet sauntered into the sitting-room, I felt that I could barely spare her a glance, despite her festive barks being definite call for attention.

I pondered all day on how I should deal with the situation. After dinner, I drew Holmes with an excuse inside the pantry, so that we could talk without being overheard.

“I can’t let Harriet wander around Fumelot City all alone on the regular.” I said. “If she just didn’t want to share something with me, however important, I should have to accept it, but the city is a dangerous place for a young small-sized Pokémon. God knows what could happen to her! She could be harmed, stolen, taken to the pound-“

“Will it make you feel any better,” my friend interrupted me, “if follow her tomorrow, in case she leaves the house again? I will tell you whether there is anything you ought to know, otherwise, she will keep her secret.”

“I would be very grateful, Holmes, if you could do me this favour. But what is it you have in your fist?”

“A reply to the telegram I sent to Salt Lake City enquiring about Jefferson Hope’s identity. They inform me that he was an explorer, not known to be married, and that he disappeared more than ten years ago after departing for the Unevadan mountains in search for silver.”

“Well, I hope, my friend, that this tells more to you than it does me.”

The night passed, but I did not rest well; in truth, I was already awake when Harriet returned from her outing in the morning, but I feigned sleep in order not to raise her suspicions.

Holmes did not mention the results of his expedition until, in the evening, he and I found ourselves again in the pantry. He took me in the most private corner and released a deep diverted laugh.

“You will not believe this.” He said.

“Believe what?” I asked, perplexed.

“Your Snubbull, she might be in love.”

“In love? Who with?”

“Who do you think? With the red-mantled Skitty.”

“The red-mantled Skitty?”

“Except that it is not red-mantled anymore.” Holmes declared. “Must have removed its pretty garment to make it harder for us to track it down. Now it looks just as your regular Skitty, except that it has retained the matching ribbon on its ear. The call of vanity.”

“I actually think the mantle might have been torn during our fight with Stantlerson.” I remembered.

“That could also be.”

I stood there, dumbfounded, waiting my friend for further disclosures.

“Here, let me explain you.” He continued, afters sensing my impatience. “This morning I put on a simple disguise and followed your Snubbull at some distance till we arrived at the Portman Market, where she apparently had a rendezvous with the medium’s Skitty. That is a highly frequented space, especially by Pokémon hoping to get some scraps of food from the vendors, hence a very convenient place for them to mingle with the crowd. Then and there, I had a realization. I stepped into a thick thread which, by previously eluding my line of thought, had rendered mysterious some rather commonplace aspects of this case. I should have considered the possibility that there might be some sympathy between the two Pokémon in question.”

“Have they even a history together?” I protested. “All I can recall is Harriet barking once or twice in its direction.”

“We cannot know what history they might have had unbeknownst to us, but you can ask yourself whether or not they behaved like they had one. Has your Snubbull ever shown any sign of interest for the Skitty?”

I took some moments to think over everything that had happened since we first met the Pokémon at Cherry Laurel Gardens.

“Harriet insisted on keeping its portrait, the one I drew to show the Rattata, next to her basket.” I said.

“And hasn’t she also attacked the Haunter, after it put the Skitty to sleep?”

“That she did also.”

“And hasn’t the Skitty attacked Stantlerson when that scoundrel started hitting your Snubbull?”

“It did and that resulted in M. Stantlerson’s death.”

“Here, I dare say, that they did behave like if they had a history together.”

“But how did this come to be?” I wondered.

Holmes took a sack of flour from the shelves and scattered it over an empty section between the provisions, then ruined the spotless expanse by sketching a little something on it with is finger.

“What does this look like, Watson?” He asked me about a small round circle with three minimal protuberances all placed on one side.

“That looks like a Skitty’s footprint.” I answered.

Pleased with my reply, Holmes proceeded to draw another figure, a bigger oval-shaped mark, but still retaining the general structure of a three-toed paw.

“And what does this look like?” He asked again, pointing at the second spot in the flour.

“A Snubbull’s footprint, just like Harriet’s.”

“And if I were to put the Snubbull’s footprint over the Skitty’s, what would we get?” My friend reproduced the outcome of the merging as he spoke.

“But that is the bizarre impression we found on the blood stain in Stantlerson first room!” I exclaimed, retrieving my note-book from my pocket and comparing Holmes’ markings with my earlier drawing of the five-digit footprint with three smaller internal fingers.

“Exactly, the main outline and the external toes belong to the Snubbull, while three minute ones centred on the upmost margin belong to the Skitty.” Said Holmes with a smug smile. “So, you see, we have proof that a deeper connection between the two started the night of Stantlerson’s attempted murder. Here’s what I think might have happened. We know that the Skitty was in Stantlerson’s room and that it scratched a line after the enchanted inscription so that the word ‘Rache’ would look like the word ‘Rachel’.  At some point, it must have accidentally wetted a paw in the nearby pool of blood and wiped it on the red bed covers. Why are you taking notes?”

“I wouldn’t want to forget any of these formidable deductions.” I hastily revealed. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

“I don’t mind.” He said. After being momentarily lost in thought, he resumed his exposition. “Now, about the Skitty, if this all happened before Mr. and Mrs. Sacker raised the alarm, it might have escaped through the window with its trainer. Yet, since we arrived at the hotel much later, this scenario provides no occasion for the two Pokémon to have had a substantial interaction and we would not be able to justify their behaving as if they had made an impression on each other.”

“So when did they meet? Apart from that time outside of the Crittermon Bar, where nothing of consequence happened.”

“You cannot have forgotten that, when we were conversing with a bed-ridden Stantlerson, your Snubbull disappeared upstairs and had a little squabble with the police officer guarding that wreck of a room.”

“I couldn’t forget that if I wished. The event drew to Harriet and me considerable antipathy from the officer.”

 “As we found the combined footprint soon after, we can place the events that set off the friendship between the two Pokémon in the time of her absence.”

“Any ideas as to what these events might be?” I asked.

“Some.” Holmes answered. “In order for The Skitty to have remained inside the hotel until Harriet reached the site, the Pokémon must have been interrupted by the arrival of the official force before being able to disguise the ‘Rache’ inscription. I assume that when the first group of policemen arrived in the street, they immediately put Stantlerson’s broken window under observation, in an attempt to spot the phantomatic Crobat, and stationed one officer inside his bed-room right after, blocking the Skitty’s only ways out and leaving it effectively trapped, bound to seek refuge under the bed or inside the closet. But if a Skitty can hide from the inferior human senses, it cannot fool the perspicacity of a Snubbull. Your dog must have perceive the presence of the cat.”

“We would have seen her running after the cat, rather than chewing the officer’s hat.”

“You are imagining that a stand-off between the two Pokémon would necessarily evolve into a conflict, but that wouldn’t have made an attachment blossom. I believe their meeting resolved into communication and that your Snubbull decided to help the Skitty, by distracting the officer with those canine charms she’s capable of mastering when she pleases, so that the Skitty could complete the alteration. That awful scene that she ultimately caused by revolting against the officer and running outside the hotel with his helmet, allowed the Skitty the freedom needed in order to escape from the building. For good measure, she also masked the Skitty’s footmark with her own, leaving us with solid, yet cryptic evidence of their tie.”

I pondered over all of my friend’s suggestions and quiet laugh came out of my mouth.

“You know, Holmes,” I said, “The Skitty altering the trainers’ writing and the Snubbull altering the Skitty’s footprint, these two narratives bear some similarity.”

“Not only in action, but in function.” My friend commented enthusiastically. “Both originated by the desire to protect another.”

“You might think this sentimental of me, but my mind is already enthralled by the idea that the similarity is not entirely coincidental and that, my dear Harriet, having witnessed the Skitty protect its trainer in such a fashion, learned that night something about love and went on to apply it for the benefit of her teacher.”

“I can always observe sentimentality in your opinions.” Holmes said. “In any case, that was a very fortunate escape for the little cat and, as Stantlerson said, fortune is a word with a double meaning. Maybe it was chance that made the two Pokémon meet, maybe it was fate and, regardless of that, now they have a wish to meet again.”

We were contemplating the conclusions derived from our conversation in intimate silence, when a series of spirited knocks shook the pantry’s door.

“I’d like to eat toast.” Martha’s voice came muffled through the wooden barrier. “That is to say, I need to take the jam jar and the bread. We already rent you two bedrooms; you’d think those would suffice for you to spend some time alone undisturbed.”

Embarrassed by the situation, I invited Martha inside the small room and would have promptly let myself out had not a rattling vibration of the downpipe made all our heads turn in the direction of the window that gave onto the back alley.

We saw the very Skitty we had just being discussing detach from our wall and land on the street. The tight horizontally elongated opening was highly situated and gave each of us the opportunity to spy on the Pokémon on the ground without an excessive risk of being noticed in return. As Holmes had related, the red mantle was gone, leaving the ribbon on its ear the only distinguishing ornament.

Martha distanced herself for a moment, then returned with Mrs. Hudson in her hand and whispered “Venha ver, Maria, o gato do desenho!”

The Skitty started meowing towards our roof and, after some seconds, the downpipe clattered one more time and the Pokémon was joined by my Harriet. It didn’t take long for the pair set off and run away from the house.

Holmes precipitously rushed outside from the kitchen’s backdoor and I after him.

“Holmes!” I cried. “We will never catch up with them.”

“Oh but we will, look there!” He exclaimed, pointing at an unsupervised hansom parked in the alley. “That is the same cab that I hired from Jefferson Hope’s ghost. If he left it behind our house, he meant for us take it. Something must have happened to his beloved medium and he wants us to get to her.”

“A hansom will do us no good in chasing two small beasts.” I said. “We should ride the Rapidash that is bridled to it. The Pokémon can control the igniting power of its flames and they will not burn us if it has been so instructed by its master.”

“Then help me cut the horse loose.”

By the time we managed to mount the Pokémon, we had already lost sight of Harriet and the Skitty. Favourably, our Rapidash was able to run at a speed twice as fast as that of the little critters, even while carrying on its back the weight of two fully-grown men, and we were able to reach the turn they had taken before they disappeared behind a second.

We easily covered the rest of distance and slowed down our pace to a moderate canter in order to ride alongside the two Pokémon. Although they undoubtedly became aware of our presence, they proved to be too absorbed in their own purpose to be bothered by us.

For a good forty minutes, the ride offered comforts as well as discomforts. Having resolved to venture outdoor in a hurry, Holmes and I had neglected to wear our overcoats and were now subjected to the tempers of the evening wind. The absence of a saddle and the disturbance caused by the discrete number of fastenings originally intended to tie our steed to its carriage contributed to aggravate our condition. Yet the harshness of the approaching night came to be mitigated by the warmth rising from the Rapidash’s own flames and the closeness between our bodies. While my grip was locked on the horse’s collar, Holmes’ hands were tightly fixed around my waist and, if otherwise I would have felt the desire to spend this time sitting in my armchair before a proper fire, in this instance I could not find myself regretting the impulsive decision that had placed us in such a rough situation.

Once arrived in the outskirts of Fumelot City, in a modest neighbourhood that we later learned to be located south-east of the metropolitan area, the Skitty halted before a ruined isolated dwelling. A light was coming through the wooden planks nailed to the windows on the upper story, but, despite the house being littered with fissures, no sound transpired from within its walls. A corroded gate precluded the entrance to the small courtyard on which the front door opened; there, hanging from its bars, was a sign which spelled the words ‘Haunted! Trespass at your own risk.’, a warning that the little Pokémon went on to disregard as the Skitty slipped through the barrier, followed by my Snubbull. They both disappeared on a narrow pathway leading to the other side of the building. Then Holmes pushed one of the gate’s doors to discover that the chain which bound them together was loose enough to let a man sneak in.

“Tie the Rapidash to a sound fence post if you can find any.” He told me, before going inside the yard and around the house.

When I was ready to join my companion, I took the same lateral path until I reached an open backdoor that gave into a dark room of uncertain function. The furniture was carelessly scattered all around the floor; while I moved towards the illuminated staircase, I had to raise my arms and feel the way in order to avoid a collision.

As I set my foot onto the steps to the first floor, I sought the banister for support and let my eyes wander over the old scraped wallpaper. That Holmes and the Pokémon had gone upstairs, where the lights showed trace of some activity, was only logical. I refrained from calling my friend’s name, for breaking the absolute silence that reigned in the atmosphere could have meant to alert an enemy. Moving forward, I sensed a piece of something roll and tense under my shoe; I crouched down to recover a red silken thread from the carpet. The yarn in my hand was but the mere termination of a far longer twine laid on the passage and leading to above corridor. Its trace brought me to a lit sitting-room, where I found Holmes, standing behind a battered sofa and holding the other extremity of the thread with a grave face.

“You may not want to advance further, Watson.” He said, ruefully. “This is a place of a death. You might be disturbed by the vision.”

“Death has been a companion of mine these past three years.” I said, proceeding inside the room.

The sofa, of which up until now I had been facing the backside, revealed a gruesome picture. Lying within its embrace was a posed, lithe figure, covered in black garments. Her face as white the hair on her head, her features lifeless. It was the lady who had been loitering outside of 221B, it was the medium who had faced Stantlerson in the Underground.

On her lap, the faithful Skitty was burying its head, purring softly and sadly. Harriet stared at the scene from the bottom of the settee, with the expression of one who wants to help, but knows not how. I took her in my arms for a short while, to offer her reassurance, then handed her to Holmes with the aim to examine the body in front of me.

The moment my fingers touched the limp woman’s throat to take her pulse, the flames in the room began to tremble and a cool spout of air cut the space that separated me from the sofa, causing me to tumble on the floor. The Skitty jumped from its trainer’s lap and landed at my side, assuming a protecting stance and expressing itself as if in my defence to an invisible attacker.

“He meant no disrespect!” Holmes cried behind me.

“That is true.” I added. “We came as friends. All I intended was to provide my services as a man of medicine.”

For some seconds everything was still; none of us dared to move when none of the occupants of the house were willing to reveal their forms. Nevertheless, the Skitty refused to forgo its position as mediator and soon after half a dozen Gastly and a Haunter materialized among us, the latter of which I believed to be the one we encountered in White Chapel’s underground station. Despite their initial hostility, the ghosts seemed to have now abandoned any antagonistic behaviours.

“I think they are giving you permission to check on their mistress.” Holmes said.

Agreeing with my companion’s observation, I did a second attempt to inspect the lady’s body, this time without interference.

“I am awfully sorry,” I said, after completing the task, “but there is nothing I can do for her. She has already passed away.”

Sorrow filled the hearts of all those who had witnessed her departure. A law-abiding citizen would hardly believe that one who had murder on their hands could still be so profoundly loved by many, yet that was the sentiment which this unmoving figure thoroughly inspired. I felt a sudden keen desire to learn more about this woman, this passionate revengeful soul, who had gone to tremendous lengths in order to bring back the one man she had loved.

“The wound on her shoulder has not been recently bleeding, nor does it seem infected.” Holmes commented. “What killed her?”

“I can detect no other physical injury and she seems to have died peacefully. I would say a failure of the heart. You mentioned that the woman left traces of blood while retreating from Cherry Laurel Gardens, possibly attributable to nose bleeding caused by excitement. This might indicate an elevated blood pressure, as a consequence of which she could have developed an aneurism.”

“In that case her days were already counted.”

Following a brief silence, I brought to Holmes’ attention the two items in her immediate possession. She had died clutching to her chest a scarlet knitted cloth and a book, devoid of any visible title. The first I recognised as the Skitty’s distinguished mantle, which had been damaged during its battle against Stantlerson and which its trainer had evidently been in the middle of repairing. The thread that led me to the sitting-room was connected to this unfinished composition and was no other than the ball of yarn from which the material was meant to be unfurled and that must have rolled down the sofa and down the stairs the moment knitter lost consciousness.

“We should read that.” Holmes said, pointing at the book. “I believe I’ve already grasped the gist of this case, but still it might contain some instructive information.”

I took the volume from her grasp and opened it to the first page.

“It’s a diary!” I exclaimed.

“Her own?” Holmes asked.

“‘Personal diary of Miss Lucy Ferrier’ it says, could be her name as well as any other girl’s. You believed her wedding ring to be in our possession; had she been married, she wouldn’t have called herself a miss. Then again, according to your telegram, Jefferson Hope had no wife.”

“The cover is worn enough that she could have signed it while being unmarried still. In what year do the records start?”

“In 1851.” I answered, peeking at the following page. “The handwriting is good, but clearly not that of an adult.”

“I think that many in this room would be interested in hearing the contents of this diary. Watson, will you read it for us during the wake? You’ll skip through the passages you do not deem suitable for our consumption.”

 

That night, I recounted to the surviving loved ones the story of Mrs. Jefferson Hope, née Lucy Ferrier. As the original text equals my own in length, I will endeavour to illustrate to my readers in a more concise fashion those aspects of the lady’s life that are relevant to the case at hand.

On the great alkali plain, in the central portion of the great North American Continent, two solitary travellers rested in the shadow of a boulder. The larger figure would have been that of a gaunt haggard man, known as John Ferrier, and the wan smaller creature curled in his arms none other than Lucy, a recently orphaned child of five, that the man had resolved to take under his protection after the death of her mother. On the path they had felt behind, for fifteen hundred miles one could trace a ghastly caravan route by the scattered remains of those who had fallen by the wayside.

As the two surviving members of the unfortunate expedition, they were dying of hunger and thirst. And so they would have, had not an extended convoy formed by innumerable man, women, children and Pokémon, stretching through the plain with a considerate number of wagons and carts, chanced upon the area and offered them rescue.

This was no ordinary party of immigrants, but rather a nomad population, which went by the name of People of Prosperity, with the declared aim of reaching the land blessed by the legendary Tornadus. This mythical Pokémon was said to govern the ways of weather and be able to grant the sustainability for life in the austere barren climate of the desert.

However, these people were of a doctrinal sort and the acceptance of John Ferrier and the little orphan amongst their group was dependent on the adoption of all those peculiar rules and habits that flourish within a congregation. Despite the numerous conditions that the People of Prosperity imposed on the newcomers, the latter were nevertheless given the freedom to travel in each other’s company and, ultimately, Ferrier was allowed to raise as his own daughter the child that he had nourished till the arrival of salvation.

Being John Ferrier a capable man and an indefatigable hunter, he rapidly gained the esteem of all of his companions, so that, when the leader of the People of Prosperity declared Tornadus’ domain to have been reached by the Great Salt Lake in the region of Unuta, he was provided with as fertile tract of land as any of the settlers.

Under his care, that land grew into one of the most fortunate estates of Salt Lake City and his daughter into an unparalleled beauty, with all the ease and grace of a true child of the West.

One warm summer morning, Lucy Ferrier was dashing on her father’s Mudsdale towards the city, hurried by a commission she had been trusted to carry out in his stead. When she reached the outskirts of the city, she found the road blocked by a great drove of Bouffalant, which in her impatience she endeavoured to pass by pushing her Mudsdale into what appeared to be a gap. The unwise decision almost proved to be fatal to the courageous girl, as the herd soon close around her and a Bouffalant’s horn came in violent contact with a flank of the Mudsdale. Had the girl been less of a rider or the grip on her mount any feebler, her fate would have been to meet her end under the hooves of the unresting Pokémon.

Assistance came from one of the travellers in the high road, who forced the drove apart and brought her to the other side. On the maiden’s part relief easily turned into and gratitude, and gratitude into affection. She readily bade him to call on her father, for he had a great deal to thank him for. As for the man, he was a savage-looking fellow and initially reluctant to take on the invitation, yet he could not find in his heart to disappoint the fierce expectations expressed by maiden and eventually agreed to pay visit to their house if her father was willing to take him as he found him.

The man did not belong to the People of Prosperity and lacked all the doctrinal believes that were prevalent in the population of city. Jefferson Hope was a silver explorer and a ranchman, temporarily stationed in the outskirts of Salt Lake City in the hope of raising capital enough to return t o the Unevadan mountains and exploit their mines. Lucy’s father had only reluctantly accepted the strict discipline that characterised the way of life of their new people, to him it was but an inconvenient imposition, and he had transferred the same sentiment to his daughter. So it was that the traveller was eagerly welcomed in the family. With the stories of his adventures as a pioneer in Unicornia, of the travels with his faithful Drilbur and of the fortunes made and fortunes lost, he charmed the two Ferriers equally.

The admiration was easily requited, especially as far as the young maiden was concerned. When the time came for Jefferson Hope’s party to leave for Unevada and its silver lodes, he gathered the courage to confess his love to Lucy, in the knowledge that it could never be his privilege to have her as his own wife. In was in fact the custom under the Doctrine of Prosperity that the women should marry within their people and harsh was the punishment for those who dared to oppose the principle. Yet, the girl had until then shown no interest in being wedded to any of the men in the congregation and her father, who had himself elected to avoid marriage, never compelled her to find a spouse.

On these grounds was founded Lucy Ferrier’s disposition to the act of disobedience who led her to be married to the traveller in secret. The night before the man’s departure, the couple knotted to each other’s ring finger a piece of red string, meant to signify the everlasting bond that stood between them and the promise to reunite under a better destiny.

Eventually, the men in Salt Lake City came to notice Lucy Ferrier’s inclination for celibacy and, after an assembly held at Tornadus’ temple, came to the agreement that she should bow to the wishes of their legendary protector and alter her designs. The girl had grown to be the flower of Unuta and it was only natural that she should be married to one of the sons of the four principal elders. She was given a month to choose between the two who had made her the honour of offering their hand, being those men young Drebber and young Stantlerson.

To escape this nefarious state of things, the lady sought the help of her father, disclosing to him her previous arrangement. Old Ferrier immediately acted in the interest of his daughter and had a message furtively sent o Jefferson Hope, with a request for him to return to Salt Lake City, for they were likely to have no other choice but to leave the region and conceal their whereabouts.

This could have sufficed to save the poor girl from her fate, had not the father’s temper got the better of him when Drebber and Stantlerson intruded into the Ferriers’ villa and made inappropriate remaks concerning the lady. His response alerted the two suitors as to Ferrier’s own stance regarding the whole matter and they proceeded to accuse the older man of having defied the wishes of Elders’ council.

This affront was punished with intimidation, in a move that revealed the true colours behind the morals of the city’s government. Each night following the events of the quarrel, a fresh number traced in blood appeared on this or that surface of the Ferriers’ villa, marking the days to the date in which Lucy Ferrier was bound to give an answer on the name of her betrothed. To make the situation worse, the weeks passed without a word being heard from her absent lover.

On the last night of the girl’s freedom, the man was finally able to make his return and sneak into the closely observed household. The reunited friends readied for flight, wrapping up no more than the indispensable. Lucy herself packed for the journey provisions alone, with all the intention to bring her pet Skitty over any material possession.

They crawled out of the house, covered by night, till they reached the three Bouffalant that Hope had prepared for their escape. The species was not a particularly fast one, but at least it was not as highly visible in the darkness as other mounts were.

The three fugitives run for two days before a difficulty in finding game among the mountains halted their escape for a few hours and they were reached by a party of Salt Lakers that had launched in their pursuit.

By this moment, my readers will already know that this was the end for old Ferrier and the brave Jefferson Hope. As for the girl, she was taken back to the city and made into Enoch J. Drebber’s wife. Mind that she never considered herself married to the scoundrel, as the only vows she had willingly taken were tied to the piece of red string which remained the only memento of her late husband and which she kept carefully hidden from her captors.

Disrupted by the death of her love and her father, Lucy Ferrier became a ghost of her former self, inflamed and resentful to the point of madness. Fearful that the lady would find it in herself to seek revenge on her beloved’s killers, Drebber arranged for her a prison inside the city’s temple, where she was held in solitary confinement.

Within those walls, her spirit was consumed by rage and her hair lost all of its colour. It was at this point that a shadow from her past resurface to channel her unrelenting anger into a single desperate purpose.

Many years prior, when she was still a little orphan mourning for the death of her mother, a Haunter had attached itself to the girl and guided her through the ways of mediumship, with the intent to let her get in contact with the late relative. At so young an age, Lucy could not master the skill and the Haunter eventually disappeared from her life. After the new murderous ordeal, the Pokémon returned in her life and kept her company in the loneliness of the dark cold cell. Unbeknown to the guards of the temple, it brought her comfort and it brought her books, from which she learned, with renewed passion and a much greater talent, the art of communicating with the dead.

It was in this cell that Lucy Ferrier overheard some conversations which made her aware of a terrible secret, one that had been kept from the People of Prosperity for the full length of their permanence in the region of Unuta. The former nomads had been told that the aim of their journey was to uncover the rich and thriving land over which Tornadus reigned with benevolence; the truth however was far less agreeable and not at all peaceful. Never was there a blessed land; the blooming vegetation bordering the southern shore of the Great Salt Lake had been made, not found. The legendary Tornadus was an unruly beast and it was in his nature to roam erratically over the expanses of the American continent. To its misfortune, an artefact capable of establishing its position had fallen into the possession of a masonic society of unscrupulous character. Under these circumstances, the People of Prosperity were gathered under their name, lied to and led through the desert on the pretence of devotion for a most fair and powerful Pokémon. After years of exploration, the heads of the expedition succeeded in trapping the beast and using its faculties to rule over the weather to turn the lands by the Great Salt Lake into a veritable heaven.

As Lucy discovered, for more than two decades, the beast had been kept in the same construction inside which she had been confined, in the core of the very temple devoted to its praise.

When after five years of imprisonment, with the help of her ghost-typed companion, the lady finally managed to breach into the open and regain her freedom, her desire for liberty gave birth to a spark of generosity. In her escape, she stopped by Tornadus’ cage and removed the chains that had been draining its powers for the benefits of others.

That day, the wrath of the sky unleashed on the roofs of Salt Lake City as the beast took revenge on those who had held it captive. The confusion allowed Lucy to steal a Bouffalant and flee the city undisturbed. The city, on the other hand, was deprived of its unwilling patron and, although it survived the aftermath, it didn’t fare as well as it initially had.

The acquired independence was spent by the lady in the pursuit of an even greater understanding of mediumship, a quest which culminated in the unearthing of that foreign incantation that sought to strengthen the presence of the dead through vengeance and murder.

Some years later, Lucy returned to Salt Lake City in order to complete her self-ascribed mission and execute Mr. Drebber and Mr. Stantlerson. She did however not find the place in the same state that she had left it. Upon discovering the Elders’ treacherous lies and losing the advantage of Tornadus’ capabilities, the People of Prosperity rebelled from their leaders. Drebber and Stantlerson had left the region altogether.

Although the trip concluded with a lack of success, a pleasant surprise waited for Lucy in the outskirts of the city. Her Skitty and Hope’s Drilbur had survived the ordeal that had wrecked the life of their trainers and had made a home for themselves at the edge of the settlement. They had recognized her figure as she climbed over the rocks, away from the high road, and instantly rushed to meet their long-missing friend.

To add to the joy of the encounter, the couple had some months prior hatched the most amiable Skitty to whom Lucy took an immediate liking. The little Pokémon returned the sympathy and expressed the desire to follow the lady in her travels. Then came for Lucy the first moments of contentment since the death of her family. To celebrate the new friendship, she stole into her old villa to get hold of her childhood diary and that particular stash of red silk from which her and Hope’s wedding rings had been cut, with the aim to knit a mantle for her new companion. When the mantle was completed, a bow for the ear was added to the outfit and, at the end, the only thing the Skitty remained in need of was a name to go by. Being the young kitten fully dressed in the colour, the choice very easily fell on Scarlet.

The tender bond that had been forged did not distract Lucy Ferrier from the pursuit of her object. By the year 1880, she had traced Drebber and Stantlerson in Fumelot City and found refuge in a house of ghosts, where no sane soul would have dared to disturb her. From here, everything happened pretty much as my friend Sherlock Holmes had already described.

The gap between the first murder and the attempt to the second man’s life was due to a sudden decline in the lady’s health, which the doctor had attributed to an aortic aneurism, the same condition that I believe eventually lead to her death.

Here ends the story of the late Mrs. Hope, an account that instigated in me the most powerful emotions and exposed me to the importance of keeping a good record of one’s own life and adventures.

But it is only fair that the last words of this tale should be spoken in the lady’s own voice:

 

_Dear Jeff,_

_I have failed in my quest to bring us together. Stantlerson died, but not at my hand and the incantation which I have fought so ardently to bring to completion will remain forever unfinished. Nor stand the reasons for why it should not stay so, as I feel these trials have put a terrible strain on my heart and I myself am approaching the end of my time in this world._

_My only concerns are for the future of my Pokémon and where they will find a place to call home after I am gone._

_As for ourselves, the outcome’s not so bleak. If we could not be together in life, we will at least be reunited in death._

_Yours beyond time,_

_Lucy_


	9. The Scarlet Thread

It should not come as a surprise that, after the events of that night, my Snubbull and the Skitty became an inseparable unit and it soon became apparent that, if I wanted to keep the first, I should exert to find a way to keep the other. Mrs. Hudson proved to be far less contrary to the idea of bringing another non encapsulated Pokémon under her roof than I would have anticipated and Martha demonstrated overly enthusiastic at the idea of Harriet finding a companion.

On the other hand, Stoutland Yard was not so easily persuaded. Much to our indignation and my Harriet’s desperation, the Skitty had been taken in custody after Holmes had explained to Mr. Lestrade and Mr. Gregson the happenings behind the so-called Crobat incidents. Holmes and I were very passionate in declaring our opposition to the confinement, as the Pokémon had not in actuality willingly hurt anyone, and eventually the detective inspectors relented on their position and agreed to let us take the Skitty to 221B.

So it came to pass that Harriet and Scarlet were then dancing in our sitting-room to a tune coming from upstairs out of the landlady’s blue flute, accompanied by the morning chirpings of Fumelot City’s Starly.

As for the medium’s other Pokémon, it elected to remain with its friends in the suburban haunted house, where it had been living for the last few months and from which the official force did not make a move to remove it.

There was another thing that Holmes managed to acquire from the hands of the police and he was, at the time, examining its texture at the microscope.

“When do you think you will be done that mantle?” I asked. “I’m sure it looks as pretty under the lens as it does under the naked eyes, but you’ve had your back bent on the thing for a good half-an-hour. I wish you would give the cloth to me so that I could complete its repairs.”

“You want to mend it?” He exclaimed. “I didn’t know you had a fancy or a talent for knitting.”

“The essentials of restoration are a skill that comes from being in the army, beside the repairs are almost concluded.”

“If the essentials are your only qualification, maybe I should be the one who fixes it. This is a very delicate garment and I might be a better knitter than you are.”

“So you too know a thing or two about knitting.” I enquired with curiosity.

“A disguise required me to master the skill.” He answered.

I blushed at the thought of what character could my friend have impersonated in order to become involved with such a feminine art; my mind was already racing with images of his arms so promiscuously employed. After some moments, my eyes fell from Holmes’ limbs to the material in his hands.

“That mantle has been wonderfully put together.” I said. “Mrs. Hope was an excellent knitter.”

“You seem to have a great admiration for Mrs. Hope.”

“In part.” I answered. “Some of her actions have been noble and courageous in the face of adversity, some other actions… I abhor them.”

Holmes raised his eyebrows.

“I find it hard to sympathise with death of her victims, they belonged to the worst ranks of society and directed their violence towards the lady herself.” I explained. “One can see how she was within her entitlement and how otherwise she had a kind and passionate soul. Still I cannot dismiss the indicators that her kindness was selective. She saved Tornadus from its prison, yet she had no scruples in trapping and maiming the Crobat. There was no compassion for the poor beast.”

“Watson, hunting is the way of the wild west.” My companion said. “I would not begrudge her too much on that score, she learned to live like she had to in order to survive. But halloa! What’s this? A most impertinent feline.”

Scarlet was demanding to climb on my friend’s lap by the viciousness of her little claws. Holmes abandoned the microscope and took her up, allowing the Skitty to examine the state of her mantle firsthand.

 “Do you want to hear my theory on why the two Pokémon bonded so rapidly back at the hotel?” I asked. “Harriet and Scarlet, I mean.”

“I do.” Holmes answered. “Frankly, I am relieved that you have a theory, as it means you do not attribute the occurrence to love at first sight. Granted that the two certainly developed strong feelings after the first encounter and there was always a predisposition for sentiment, but that a couple of strangers should decide to collaborate in those circumstances is highly unlikely without an additional form of encouragement.”

“You find the concept of love at first sight ludicrous?

“And you don’t?”

“I find the concept rare, but you are a queer man on the matter of emotion and I won’t try to convert your point of view. As for my theory, Skitty are a species renowned for their ability to charm people and Pokémon alike and there is a particular move that a Skitty can learn at a young age, Attract it is called, and which aims to dissuade an opponent from attacking by the means of inspiring affection. This move, combined with a Skitty’s natural ability, could have persuaded my Harriet to go to extreme lengths in order to help the concealed Scarlet that night.”

“Bravo, Watson!” My companion cried.

“Thank you, Holmes.”

“In that you divined the status from which your Snubbull was afflicted, but missed a decisive element.”

“And what that would be?”

“You believe that the collaboration was reached thanks to a combination of the Skitty’s ability, Cute Charm, and the move Attract, but the first only works on physical contact and the Skitty was hidden. Attract alone is not a move powerful enough to inspire but a feeble infatuation. Here’s where you Snubbull’s set of moves comes into play. Snubbull don’t naturally learn to subdue their adversaries with infatuation, but the move can still be taught them through special training.” Holmes briefly paused his exposition and I paled. “Don’t you think I have not noticed?”

“Noticed what?” I bumbled, suddenly aware that my domestic mischief had been discovered.

“That when you sat down to plan your Snubbull’s education, you came to the conclusion that there would be some usefulness in teaching her a move to make her feisty presence more appealable to others, especially to your fellow lodger. You were very worried that her not-so-occasional bad temper would prompt me to change accommodations and leave you without a room-mate, despite my frequent assurances that I did not actually mind the dog. For this reason, you went to the library and bought a technical book upon the very subject of attraction, ‘The Status of Infatuation’, I saw it in your bed-room. Then you proceeded to teach the move Attract to your Snubbull and to use it on me.”

“I apologise-“

“I don’t mind it. What’s important is how this is relevant to the case at hand. I believe that, given her young age, upon entering the room and smelling an intruder, Attract was the only move not requiring physical or visual contact at Harriet’s disposition.”

“So Harriet used Attract on Scarlet, how does that make her the one under a particularly strong infatuation?”

“Because of this, my dear friend.” Holmes said putting his palm on the red mantle under the microscope. “You might have heard of a peculiar artefact, originated in the East and called Destiny Knot in our language, I’m sure it is at least mentioned in your book on infatuation. It is called in Chinese 姻緣紅線, literally the red thread of marriage.”

“According to the legend,” I supplied, “the gods tie a red cord to the finger or the ankle of the ones who are fated to love each other.”

“The legend is not relevant here, the tangible effects that artefact produces are. When a Pokémon wearing the item is struck by infatuation, its opponent becomes affected by the same status. And look at what the Skitty has been wearing this whole time; I have examined it thoroughly, the silk from which this mantle has been knitted is without doubt a Chinese red thread of marriage! If a small piece of cloth would suffice to ingratiate an adversary, think of what a whole mantle could do, how powerful the infatuation must have been when Harriet’s Attract rebounded on her in combination with Scarlet’s own move.”

“But how did you guess the powers of this silk? It looks ordinary to me.”

“The magnified fibre reveals a distinctive texture. That I could see through the glass when I first found the red string coming from the same stash in Stantlerson’s hotel room, yet, despite its deterioration, under the microscope the singularities of this thread become an even more fascinating wonder. As soon as I realized what lied in my hand, I imagined that our case must have been withholding the secret of a romance, for the thread is not only practical, but also symbolic and a token of affection.” Holmes bent to lay his chin on Scarlet’s head. “And also a sign, perhaps, that a second romance would blossom between the Pokémon during the investigation and, luckily, although both relationship were born clandestine, one of them at least was destined to breath in the open. There’s the scarlet thread of love running through the colourless skein of life and only a fraction of its marvel is exposed.”

“Holmes!” I exclaimed. “You have such a profound knowledge of so a large variety of topics and such an insightful mind to guide you in the art of detection. Your corrections are much appreciated, but I have to admit that it wasn’t on this score that I expected you to object to my theory.”

“What objections were you expecting then?” My friend asked.

“It is a known fact,” I started with a trace of apprehension, “that all those abilities, items and moves which we have just discussed affect only a Pokémon of the opposite gender. My Snubbull is a female and, now that we got to know her, we know that the Skitty is a female as well.”

“Watson, how does that even matter?” Holmes answered impatiently. “Those are believed to be the effects, but it doesn’t mean that the belief is correct, as Harriet and Scarlet are proof enough of. If Pokémon can love outside of their species, why not within their own gender?”

“This is a bold statement, Holmes, and I hope you recognise that this conviction should not be shared with untrustworthy ears.”

“That’s why I’m sharing it with you. Should I not have done so?”

“I’m not a man who will judge this kind of inversion. If I was, I wouldn’t live in this house.”

My companion became stiff and visibly disturbed. Silence fell between our chairs, until I felt it was my responsibility to ease the tension I had unwittingly caused.

“My dear Holmes, I did not mean to unsettle you, it’s just that I could not help noticing what has been going on around me. Martha herself can scarcely supress the allusions and Mrs. Hudson won’t let a day pass without making of her the most spoiled maid of all Albion, in fact I should argue that the girl is not a maid at all. I know you are aware of their romantic association, for you know everything about everybody and you have been their friend for some years already. Let me reassure you that I have nothing against the landladies, the Pokémon or anyone else of the same inclination. Women have been loving women since the ancient times, there’s nothing new under the sun, but the candour with which you expressed this opinion alerted me, as it is one that doesn’t meet the favour of society.”

Although Holmes did not dignify me with a response, I could observe a little smile breaking upon his face. Seeing as the discussion was not to be prolonged, I took my newspaper and leafed through it until I found an infuriating paragraph. After a minute, my friend must have noticed the expression of outrage on my face, for he enquired about the contents of the article I had been reading.

“Nothing but lies!” I answered. “‘To an unexpected conclusion,” it says, ‘came two day ago the chain of Crobat incidents which have been terrifying the inhabitants of Fumelot City since last winter. Our readers may now leave their houses at night without the fear of being dragged in the sky by a flying monster. The whole city is indebted to Detective Inspector Lestrade and Detective Inspector Gregson of Stoutland Yard for the discovery that the beast had been under the control of an American felon, who was also charged for the murder of Mr. Enoch J. Drebber. Said trainer has been found dead by the police last Monday in an abandoned suburban house and the Crobat has been stated to no longer constitute a danger for the population.’ It goes one for quite a few lines with a repetition of all the previous sightings and you, my friend, are not even mentioned once!”

“It is to be expected from the police that they would take all the credit and twist the story so as to receive after the account the most praise and no reprisals. You will have noticed how they have obscured the significant fact that the Crobat was never in the city to begin with and that they were wrong on that score, but perhaps this critique is unfair since I let them believe in that story in the first place.”

“If this is how things will be, I will take it upon myself to write a faithful account of your cases, or at least faithful enough to place the credit where it’s due. Your merits should be publicly recognized. I could even make a full novel out of the events!”

“Goodness gracious!” My friend cried. “And how would you call it?”

“What do you think of ‘A Study in Scarlet?’” I said, pointing at the little Pokémon on Holmes’ lap.

“Nobody would understand the title until the end of the book. Beside you should call it ‘A Study in Skitty’, Pokémon sell better than colours.”

“‘A Study in Skitty’ it is then.”

“Though I must confess, Watson, that I am much more worried about the impact that the article is going to have on the production of my anti-venin than about who gets the credit for solving the case. Without the fear of a Crobat dwelling in the city, the hospital may cut the founding to my project. I already had to fiddle with the documents to make it sure that I would get the authorization to use one of the labs.”

“Oh dear!” I exclaimed. “So that’s what you were doing in the administration wing the first time we met.”

Holmes ignored my comment.

“Incidentally,” he resumed, “I have received a reply from my friend Dr. Corneliu Acula, to whom I had sent the third dose of my antidote for testing purposes. I am glad to announce that the anti-venin has successfully worked on a young girl of eighteen bitten by a Transylvanian Crobat. ”

“Congratulations!”

“And I will also step down as a test subject, as I’ve now ordered a Ditto to take my place. The species is resistant enough that there is no need to worry about the Pokémon getting harmed and they can also mimic the physical form of many others creatures, making their blood much more adaptable and effective than my own. Oh, look at the clock, Watson. It’s getting late.”

“For what? It’s but nine in the morning.”

“To look for a device capable of detecting ghosts and preventing them from entering an area. It might take a while to find such an instrument, but it will be worth it; we cannot have ghosts coming in and out of the house at their leisure and without our knowledge. What if they steal another one of our possessions? Or even worse, what if they happen upon the landladies kissing! Are you coming with me? I will sing you that little tune you so fancy: Tra-la-la-lira-lira-lay.”

“In a moment!” I shouted after Holmes, who had leapt out of his chair and was already out in the corridor.

Five minutes later, I was leaning back in a cab with my dear friend sitting at my side and this exceptionally talented detective carolled away like a Chatot while I meditated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> Thank you for reading my story!
> 
> I have already some ideas for other installments of the series. I may write a couple of short stories next, let me know if you are interested!


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